What bolts, though forged by a Cyclops, could resist that horrible grinding?--could hold together the immense weight which the sea threw up as a child a ball, leaving parts of it poised in air, out of water, unsustained save by the structure that contained it, then letting the whole hull fall with a hollow, horrible crash into a chasm between the waves, beating it first here, then there, with blows the force of which was to be calculated in hundreds of tons? I scrambled up through the fore scuttle, and perceiving Cornish smoking a pipe under the break of the poop, I desired he would go and relieve the boatswain at the wheel for a short while and send him to me, as I had something particular to say to him. I waited until the boatswain came, as here was the best place I could choose to conduct a conversation. Beyond all question the wind was falling, and though the ship still rolled terribly, she was not taking in nearly so much water over her sides. I re-trimmed the lamp in my hand, and in a few minutes the boatswain joined me. I said to him at once-- "I have just made nine inches of water in the hold." "When was that?" he inquired. "Ten minutes ago." "When you sounded the well before what did you find?" "Between five and six inches." "I'll tell you what it is, sir," said he. "You'll hexcuse me sayin' of it, but it's no easy job to get at the true depth of water in a ship's bottom when she's tumblin' about like this here." "I think I got correct soundings." "Suppose," he continued, "you drop the rod when she's on her beam ends. Where's the water? Why, the water lies all on one side, and the rod 'll come up pretty near dry." "I waited until the ship was level." "Ah, _you_ did, because you knows your work. But it's astonishin' what few persons there are as really _does_ know how to sound the pumps. You'll hexcuse me, sir, but I should like to drop the rod myself." "Certainly," I replied, "and I hope you'll make it less than I." In order to render my description clear to readers not acquainted with such details, I may state that in most large ships there is a pipe that leads from the upper deck, alongside the pumps, down to the bottom or within a few inches of the bottom of the vessel. The water in the hold necessarily rises to the height of its own level in this pipe; and in order to gauge the depth of water, a dry rod of iron, usually graduated in feet and inches, is attached to the end of a line and dropped down the tube, and when drawn up the depth of water is ascertained by the height of the water on the rod. It is not too much to say that no method for determining this essential point in a ship's safety could well be more susceptible of inaccuracy than this.