Clarence’s Dream—Davy Jones’s Locker—Origin of the Term—Treasures of the Ocean—Pearl Fishing—Mother o’ Pearl—Formation of Pearls—Art and Nature Combined—The Fisheries—The Divers and their _modus operandi_—Dangers of the Trade—Gambling with Oysters—Noted Pearls—Cleopatra’s Costly Draught—Scottish Pearls very Valuable—Coral—Its Place in Nature—The Fisheries—Hard Work and Poor Pay—The Apparatus Used—Coral Atolls—Darwin’s Investigations—Theories and Facts—Characteristics of the Reefs—Beauty of the Submarine Forests—Victorious Polyps—The Sponge a Marine Animal—The Fisheries—Harpooning and Diving—Value of Sponges. “I saw a thousand fearful wracks: A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon: Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept, As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered there.” So dreamed Clarence on a memorable night, and, indeed, what treasures, known and unknown, must not the ocean cover! The well‐known term which forms the heading of this chapter, with its popularly‐understood meaning, is familiar to every schoolboy, yet its origin is most obscure. Mr. Pinkerton, an ingenious correspondent of that valuable medium of inquiry, _Notes and Queries_,(25) argues as follows, and his opinion is entitled to respect. He says:—“I have arrived at the conclusion that the phrase is derived from the Scriptural account of the prophet Jonah. The word _locker_, on board ship, generally means the place where any particular thing is retained or kept, as ‘the bread locker,’ ‘shot locker,’ &c. In the ode in the second chapter of the Book of Jonah, we find that the prophet, praying for deliverance, describes his situation in the following words:—‘In the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about; the depth closed me round about; the earth with her bars was about me.’ “The sea, then, might not misappropriately be termed by a rude mariner Jonah’s locker: that is, the place where Jonah was kept or confined. Jonah’s locker, in time, might readily be corrupted to _Jones’s_ locker, and Davy, as a very common Welsh accompaniment of the equally Welsh name Jones, added; the true derivation of the phrase having been forgotten.” However this may be, it is of the hidden treasures of the ocean locker and its explorers we would now speak. And first let us take a glance at the pearl, coral, and sponge fisheries,(26) as they are somewhat incorrectly called, inasmuch as it will pave the way to the subject of divers and diving.