thing?' They came on board and inspected her at our invitation, and expressed great astonishment at the strange boat they had picked up. But what was much more to the purpose was that when they found we had no particular landing place in view they very kindly offered us the hospitality of Mr. Vanderbilt Bergen's dock at Bay Ridge for as long as we wished to stay there for experiments. Then they took our 'painter' and towed us into his dock on the site of the present Crescent Yacht Club station. The two young gentlemen, Tunis Bergen and his cousin Harry Midgley, also contracted to take care of our material and help us out during our stay at their dock. What was of great importance to us was that we learned from Mr. Vanderbilt Bergen, Tunis's brother, that the place we had happened upon was by far the most suitable of any within miles for diving and experiments. We left the boat there over two months, making experiments to determine the value of our devices and to improve them wherever possible. "Every time we went out we took two or more dives of various lengths, most of these quite across the Narrows, a little below Stapleton. During these dives I always made certain that there was no ship of twenty-five or thirty feet draught passing. Ordinarily we ran at a depth of not less than twenty feet, so that we could afford to ignore excursion steamers, fishing boats, and small yachts. The paddles of excursion steamers we could hear a long distance away, so that we never had any difficulty in avoiding them by changing our course or running at a greater depth until they had passed. We had a rather exciting experience on one occasion when we started to run submerged from Stapleton to Bay Ridge. At starting there was no large vessel in sight, but when about two hundred and fifty yards from shore I distinctly heard the paddle of a steamer. I instantly changed the vessel's course from directly across the Narrows, heading her upstream and running to twenty feet depth so as to eliminate any danger of a collision. Running along I listened for the sound of paddles, but could hear nothing, so I concluded that the steamer must have passed beyond the range of hearing or else had changed her course. Therefore I thought it would be safe to come within fifteen feet of the surface and listen again. I did so, and, hearing no sound, brought the turret above the surface to look around, but I could see no steamer. I then resumed my course back to Bay Ridge. On approaching Mr. Bergen's dock I saw three or four men jumping around and acting as if demented, so on landing I asked Bergen the cause of their hilarity. 'Oh,' he said, 'you frightened the d---- out of the _St. Johns_, the Long Branch steamer. You remember having come near the surface shortly after you started across and then diving? We didn't see you again until you rose three hundred yards out at this side.' I said that I