Deep-sea diving

“ The Diving Sphere built for Deep Sea Salvage Operations
A common diver's suit does not protect the diver from hydraulic pressure. Only a flexible suit and a thin layer of air separates him from the surrounding water. This air must necessarily be of the same pressure as the surrounding water. The air that is pumped down to the diver not only serves to supply his lungs, but by entering his blood transmits its pressure to every part of his anatomy. As long as the external pressure is equalized by a corresponding pressure within him, the diver experiences no serious discomfort. ”

“ Now there are sails fluttering on every sea, prodigious steamers throbbing like leviathans against wind and wave; harbors are built, and rocks and shoals removed; lighthouses gleam nightly from ten thousand stations on the shore; the great deep itself is sounded by plummet and diving-bell; the submarine world is disclosed; and man is gathering into his hands the laws of the very winds that toss its surface. ”

“ Indeed, most frequently the diver must do his work under water by means of touch only, and when one considers the varied tasks he is called upon to perform, pipe laying, building, drilling holes in rocks and charging them with dynamite in darkness, looking for treasure, recovering dead bodies and sunken cargoes, or inspecting all parts of a wrecked vessel, buried in water a hundred feet deep, it is not to be wondered at that he should be proud of any special skill in this direction with which nature and practice have favored him. ”

“ The divers use stones on which they descend feet foremost. Although this is less spectacular than the method of diving practised by the natives of the South Sea islands, it enables the fisherman to reach the bottom more speedily and with far less effort. The diving-stones range in weight from thirty to fifty pounds each, depending largely on the depth of water and the weight of the fisherman. ”

“ If disturbed it vomits an inky fluid which discolours the waters about, and the diver, bewildered in the gloom, is liable to fall against the rocks and be caught.
In the native pearl fisheries much of the diving is done by women, who go down without suits. They fasten stones to their feet to enable them to sink, but do not plug up their nostrils and ears as do the pearl divers of India. Most of them can stay under water only a few seconds more than a minute, and they cannot work in such deep waters as the men in diving dress. ”

“ As the boat is impelled by the tide, the diver may have to walk rapidly in a swinging gait; and if he should stumble or fall while stooping to pick up the shell, recovery of balance may be difficult. He must be constantly on the alert and has many dangers to avoid. Sharks are numerous in these clear tropical waters; but although disaster sometimes results, they are timid, a stream of air bubbles from the sleeve of the dress sending them away in fright. More fruitful sources of danger are fouled air-pipes, broken pumps, falling into holes, and especially paralysis from recklessly deep diving. ”

“ The relief is sometimes so soothing that in long waits the droning of the air-valve will lull the diver into a sleep, from which he is suddenly awakened by a quick jerk on his wrist. Many divers, while waiting for the movements of those above, play with the fish, watch the crabs, or rake over the gravel in search of the thousand and one things that are lost overboard and that everybody hopes to find on the bottom of the sea. ”

“ The longest time that a natural diver has been known to remain beneath the surface is about two minutes. Some pearl and sponge divers rub their bodies with oil, and put wool, saturated with oil, in their ears. Others hold in their mouth a piece of sponge soaked in oil, which they renew every time they descend. It is doubtful, however, whether these expedients are beneficial. The men who dive in this primitive fashion take with them a flat stone with a hole in the centre; to this is attached a rope, which is secured to the diving boat and serves to guide them to particular spots below. ”

“ And there are dangers also in nude diving, even to those who have spent a lifetime about the water. Sharks and sting-rays and devil-fish there are in abundance, and many of them know the taste of diver’s flesh; on the other hand many a daring South Sea Islander could tell of a fierce combat more thrilling than even those pictured by Victor Hugo. One of the chief advantages of the diving-suit is that in case a shark comes along, the diver can bide his time until the fish is ready to leave, or he can frighten it away by ejecting air bubbles from the sleeve of his suit or by other demonstrations ”

“ Men of good constitution and resourcefulness are needed for the profession of diving. Only a few can work at extreme depths, though an old hand is able to remain for several hours at a time in sixty feet of water. The record depth reached by a diver is claimed by James Hooper, who, when removing the cargo of the Cape Horn, wrecked off the coast of South America, made seven descents to 201 feet, one of which lasted forty-two minutes. ”

“ On reaching the fishing-ground the sambûk anchors, under the shelter of a reef, perhaps miles out to sea, or perhaps near some islet or sandbank. The canoes with which it is loaded are launched and two men paddle away in each. Though both can dive they go in pairs distinguished as “captain” and “paddler,” the former being chosen for good eyesight and skill in distinguishing the pearl shells from the weeds, sponge, and stones among which they grow. A bad captain “sees every stone as a shell” which results in waste of energy in useless diving. ”

“ A diver being lowered from a vessel is swung to and fro like a pendulum, and if there is any sea on—the open sea is never entirely still—the surge naturally affects the diver so that it is beyond human possibility to limit his descent to a nicety or to take the time either in going down or coming up that science has proved necessary to his physical well-being in the most generous sense. The greater the depth the greater the difficulties, and to reach a submergence of one hundred and fifty feet is now practically prohibitive except under ideal conditions. ”

“ There is another department of the art now under consideration, in which our friend greatly excelled, namely, that of diving. There are few divers who do not feel a kind of exultation in their power over the element, and in their ability to move under the surface of the water with ease and pleasure. Half a century ago, diving was a difficult and dangerous art, demanding great skill and endurance; but modern science has given the professional diver an almost perfect accoutrement, by means of which he can literally walk down to the bottom of the sea, and telegraph for as much air as he requires. ”

“ Most of the underwater boats to-day sink rapidly on an even keel. The old method of depressing the nose of the boat so as to make a literal dive has been abandoned, partly because of the inconvenience it caused to the men within who suddenly found the floor on which they were standing tilted at a sharp angle, and partly because the diving position proved to be a dangerous one for the boat. ”

“ They were not even then out of the wood; for shortly afterwards they sighted another of the enemy’s ships, and again they had to dive and go on their way beneath the water; but eventually they reached their port safely, happy to have escaped, but chagrined at not having been able to do any damage to the foe.
Because we do not reap the benefits in daily life of the work of the diver, few of us give him much [171] thought; but for a hazardous, heroic vocation, that of the man in the diving suit is probably without equal. ”

“ The diving-bell was so styled owing to the first machines being made in the shape of a gigantic bell. An inverted wine-glass, thrust mouth downwards into water, will not fill with water, owing to the air which it contains keeping the water out. It will partially fill, however, because air is compressible, and the deeper down it is thrust the more will the air be compressed. ”

“ Men who have observed and studied think they have a pretty good line on the notions and the moods of the sea—but take it from me as a submarine diver, they haven’t. If one is standing on a rock and looking out on it, or sailing across it in a safe boat, the ocean becomes a matter of “beautiful surf,” or an expanse more or less hubbly with waves. ”

“ In a few places where the beds lie in shallow inlets and sheltered bays they can be dredged, but almost universally the oysters are gathered by divers. During the greater part of the year, when storms [178] rage, diving is very dangerous if not quite impossible; but when the song of the sea is hushed to low crooning, and the gentle roll of the waves does no more than playfully slap the boats in passing, then in the seas where men dive for pearls they gather to the harvest of gems.
There are two ways of diving—naked, and with dress. ”

“ But I at once knew that very valuable pearls must often be found in conch-shells and deep-sea oyster-shells, as the diver scraped in all of both that he could find.
Remember! All kinds of shell-fish are called "mollusca," have white blood, and breathe not only in the water, but also in the air.
And will you believe it? I have found out considerable about the signals that a diver gives to the man at the pump on deck.
If he wants to be pulled up, be gives the life-line four sharp pulls. If he wants more air, he gives one pull at the air-pipe. ”

“ THE MECHANISM OF DIVING Diving being a profession which can be carried on in its simplest form with the simplest possible apparatus—merely a rope and a stone—its history reaches back into the dim and inexplorable past. We may well believe that the first man who explored the depths of the sea for treasure lived as long ago as the first seeker for minerals in the bosom of the earth. Even when we come to the various appliances which have been gradually developed in the course of centuries, our records are very imperfect. ”

“ Diving is certainly the best way for you to enter the water—always provided that you know all about its depth. Nothing can be more unhealthful than the dawdling habit of wading out ankle-deep or knee-deep, and waiting to get your courage up. ”

“ A diver’s hands are the sole portion of his body outside the diving suit, the dress ending at the wrists, where thick india-rubber bands prevent the admission of water and expulsion of air. Should a diver meet a large groper, the only thing to be done is to either ascend twenty or thirty feet and drift out of the short-sighted fish’s range of vision or, if there is no tide or current, rise to the surface. ”

“ With the use of this apparatus another advantage is gained. When the diver is down the air he expires rises in bubbles to the surface, and by the regularity with which they rise his condition can be easily known. If they cease, it is known that something must have happened, and that he should be instantly hauled up. In the old diving dress the expired air passed into the space between his body and the clothing and out at a valve in the helmet, but as the excess of air supplied to him escaped in this way also, it could not be told from this whether the diver was alive or dead. ”

“ The dome, when down, serves to protect the divers, so that at any time they can go down to regulate the working of the drills, or perform any other service. Without this protection, the divers could not keep their feet, so strong is the current on a rising or falling tide. The divers are protected by a diving suit; the air is furnished them by a pipe to the back of the helmet they wear, and is forced down by an air pump. When a set of holes are drilled, they are charged with nitro-glycerine, and simultaneously exploded by electricity. ”

“ The best method of learning to dive is to stand on the side of the bath or on the bank of the river, and then stoop down until the body is nearly double, stretch out the arms in front of the head, sink the head between them and gradually fall over into the water. The ability to enter the water head first will then soon be acquired. To begin, the legs should be placed together and the body kept erect, then a few short inspirations should be made and the lungs cleared and inflated, the arms should be swung from the front and a spring made from the diving base. ”

“ The man of the atolls is in a world of his own where none but his kind can follow, and they still squat on their outriggers, chatting and laughing like a crowd of boys at a swimming pool.
One alone seems interested in the diver's movements: his mate, a fair-skinned woman, with streaming blue-black hair, leans over the gunwale of the canoe, looking down through a kerosene tin water-glass.
The diver's dark figure against the pale-green coral becomes more blurred; a stream of silver air bubbles floats upward. ”

“ In the first place, there was not the footing on that bottom that a submarine diver needs. I skated about almost helplessly when the heaving sea clutched at me. When I tried to drive the shovel into the sand I was pushed back, and the tool made only scratches on the bottom. Without a prop or a brace, a diver cannot pull or push horizontally with much force even under the best conditions, and when I did succeed in getting the shovel into the sand and scooped a hole, the particles began to settle back, driven by the swaying seas. The giant Pacific was jealous of the treasure it had engulfed. ”

“ It has now been brought to a high state of perfection by the well-known submarine engineers Siebe and Gorman, Heinke and Davis, and others, of London, and Denayrouze of Paris. It encases the diver completely from head to foot, is perfectly water-tight, and is made of thick sheet india-rubber covered on both sides with tanned twill—the helmet and breast-plate being metal. ”