Hi, I've been thinking about this for a day or so, so I thought I would contribute my own thoughts to this discussion.
First of all, I have known about this story since the 1970s when it was first published in one of the popular magazines of the time,
and since then, I have noted this story has been published in many other magazines and books.
I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the story or Mr. Ray Brown, since I have never researched him or his credentials presented in the story.
As a scientific researcher, that would be my starting point, since it is usually at this point in an investigation we can logically deduce whether or not a story is legitimate or simply a viral urban legend.
As for the location in the story, as armchair explorers, a cursory examination of a map of the Bahamas will show that the Berry Islands are a small group of reef-shaped isles in the approximate center of the Bahamas Islands group, approximately 125 miles due East of Miami, Florida. This of course is interesting in light of our own research here at APEX since the Berry Islands are only about 75 miles due East of Bimini, which is itself only 50 miles due East of Miami. So it is close to the area where we at APEX have discovered the remains of a stone city.
In geological terms, the next step in looking at the details in the story, we see that this area was once a vast plain on the subcontinent of Poseidia prior to the last Ice Age, 10,000 or more years ago, when the thawing of the ice masses in the northern Atlantic and North America suddenly, possibly due to a comet or asteroid impact somewhere, caused the sea levels to rise in the mid-Atlantic and submerged the subcontinent of Poseidia to its present-day appearance as the Bahamas, the West Indies, and Cuba.
This cataclysmic event may have been the catastrophe that submerged Atlantis, as in Plato's account. In these points, I wish to mention, this is the general thesis offered by my colleagues Bill Donato and Greg and Lora Little. It is the one thesis that best fits all the available facts which are arrived at by exploration and investigation of the Bahamas region of the Atlantic, popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.
Returning to the narrative of the Ray Brown story, we notice the location is a place approximately 20 miles from the sub-marine drop off known as the Tongue of the Ocean. This is a deep oceanic trench separating Andros Island from Providence Island, and probably corresponds to a deep place in the ocean prior to 10,000 years ago, when Poseidia was a subcontinent, perhaps the true "Lost Continent of Atlantis". Thus we would not look in that deep underwater chasm for anything relative to our search, but the relatively shallow waters surrounding the immediate area of the Berry Islands, as Bill Donato has done with Bimini. Bill has extensively researched the ancient shorelines of Poseidia, and has established where most of the ancient beaches would have been prior to the submergence 10,000 years ago. This is a logical and scientific method of research because it establishes where we can expect to find ancient settlements, villages or cities along the coasts and rivers, following waterways.
According to this narrative, it is not known where this underwater pyramidal structure was, but we are given the depth, 22 fathoms which equals about 30 meters or 131.2 feet. The pyramid's height is given as 120 feet, of which 90 feet was still visible above the sea floor. I suppose Mr, Brown arrived at these figures by standard means - i.e. his diving equipment would have given him the depth, then he estimated the height of the pyramid relative to the depth, and then triangulated the angle of slope of the pyramid to arrive at its full height, after he returned from his dive.
This would indicate that the apex of this pyramid would be approximately 40 feet or so below the surface, and could constitute a navigation hazard to large modern ships and vessels. By modern SSS (Side-Scan Sonar) and GPS equipment readouts, it is now possible to pinpoint this pyramid using the latest equipment, and scanning the ocean down to a depth of at least 60 feet, allowing for a 20-foot depth “fudge factor”. What is time-consuming however, is the time it would take to do a sweep of the ocean in this region of the Bahamas. A professional navigator today would do it using a map grid, and simply black out each block of the grid, but it would take nearly a month to do such a routine, labor-intensive and therefore costly task. And as long as we are doing this, we may as well map the sea floor in minute detail as well.
Returning to the story once again, we are told that Ray Brown swam around the apex of the pyramid, then found an opening and swam inside. This might prove to be a more daunting feat than most divers would undertake, not knowing what was within, or if one could then escape once inside. So we see this brave adventurer was somewhere around 40 to 60 feet below the surface at this point, and not near the sea floor. He continued along a passage inside until he came upon a large chamber within the apex, from which there dangled a long copper rod from the top interior apex down, about 3 inches in diameter, and capped at the lower end by a red crystal stone carved to a point downward.
We are not told whether this chamber was all completely submerged, or if there was an air pocket inside at this area. One would think that even after many thousands of years, an air pocket might still remain in an apex room such as this. The copper rod and red crystal stone pointed downward in the center of the room to a "stand of carved stone topped by a scrolled plate with rolled ends". I get the impression that it was rather like looking at an open book upon a stand, in a Graeco-Roman style. Curious for this locale. And to paraphrase, "upon this plate rested a pair of carved bronze hands, life size, in which rested a clear crystal ball, about 3-1/2 inches in diameter."
Brown then felt a foreboding presence as he stole the crystal ball, thief as he was, and scurried out of there. He did not declare his discovery, and did not show it to anyone until 5 years later, in 1975.
The sphere appears to have some unusual properties, such as the appearance of three triangular forms within it, and sometimes the reflection of one's own eye, and other possibly psychic or paranormal phenomenon associated with it, as people have reported with the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull, discovered in a ruined Mayan temple at Lubuntun in Belize in 1924.
Apparently Mr. Brown took his crystal sphere to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC and asked for their professional opinion about it, and they gave him the description he provides in the concluding remarks of his story. Of course, this is merely hearsay until we have some documentation to that effect.
My only concluding comment would be, in the interest of answering your questions, is that we need to document this person Ray Brown, and his story, if possible. We need to determine if he is still alive in these intervening 40 years, and his whereabouts. This will go a long way to establishing credibility to his story. We of course also need to document this remarkable crystal ball, and document it with photos and scientific analysis. Other things such as his boat, diving gear, and companions on the trip would add to the story and make it much more plausible.