Wonderful stories are told of the great depths to which these naked divers go and the great length of time they can remain under water. Many of these tales are gross exaggerations,—yarns which have grown more wonderful with the telling, or the reports of careless or inexperienced observers. As a matter of fact at most of the fisheries, twenty to thirty feet is good diving, and from forty to fifty feet is the maximum depth. Sixty to eighty seconds is the average limit of time they remain under water. If one will try to hold the breath for sixty seconds, even while remaining perfectly still, it will be at once understood that to do so while moving and working rapidly under water is a great feat. Nevertheless there have been instances undoubtedly, where naked divers have gone to much greater depths and remained under for several minutes. Such cases are rare however and occur most frequently among the natives of the South Sea Islands, who, male and female, are expert divers from childhood and spend much of their lives in the water. Visitors have claimed that natives of the Tongarewa Islands, in longitude one hundred and fifty-eight degrees W. and latitude nine degrees S., can do twenty to twenty-five fathoms and will even go deeper when tempted by the sight of a few oysters lying in a hole or depression near by. Going below twenty-five fathoms results almost invariably in a sort of paralysis. The diver comes up howling and incapable of motion and unless companions at once seize and rub him vigorously with salt water until circulation is restored, a process lasting sometimes many hours, he dives no more. If restored he will dive again next day, and such is their recklessness that the same temptation would lead him to take the risk again. Monsters abound in these waters. Should the diver be attacked by a devil-fish, shark, or sword-fish, he does not use a knife, as blood would attract other devils of the sea and becloud the water to his own confusion. Instead he seeks to avoid his enemy, and if the troubler is a sword-fish, tries to find shelter among the rocks. If the fish departs quickly, he escapes; but the time of a live man one hundred feet under water is short and sometimes the sword-fish over-stays it. Helmets have been used to a certain extent in all parts of the world. Many of them were clumsy affairs, abhorred by all native divers, and were a bad introduction to the "dress" used in the large operations of big fisheries such as those of Australia and the Pacific coast of this continent. In the seas about Australia, modern appliances are being rapidly introduced. The Australians use them if possible, wherever they fish. On their own coast all diving is now done in dress; but among some of the islands of the Pacific, where they are extending their interests, native prejudice is still able to hinder the use of it.