Diver

“ The fact is, a diver has quite as much as he can attend to with the burden of his suit (about a hundred and seventy-five pounds) , and his two lines to watch and keep from kinks and entanglements. Touch one of these lines, and you touch his life. Fasten a new line to him, or two new lines, and you enormously increase his peril. Imagine yourself stumbling about in a dark forest, with a man strapped on your back, and several ropes dragging behind you among trees and rocks, each separate rope being to you as breath and blood! That is precisely the diver's case. ”

“ The diver seldom goes down to a greater depth than seven fathoms, and remains at most fifty seconds under water. He has wax in his ears, his nose is closed by a clip, and with a stone at his feet and a rope round his waist he jumps overboard and disappears into the depths. ”

“ It was rising tide the next afternoon, an hour before slack water (slack water is the diver's harvest-time) , when the crew of the steam-pump Dunderberg gathered on deck to witness my descent and assist in dressing me; for no diver can dress himself. The putting on a diving-suit is like squeezing into an enormous pair of rubber boots reaching up to the chin, and provided with sleeves that clutch the wrists tightly with clinging bands, to keep out the water. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The diver stands upright on a spring-board or on the edge of a float, with the arms held stiff to the sides, the chest well filled with air so as to give buoyancy to the body, and the eyes resting on about that spot in the water where he expects to plunge below the surface. ”

“ 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. ”

“ CALEB WEST, MASTER DIVER CHAPTER I—THE CAPE ANN SLOOP
The rising sun burned its way through a low-lying mist that hid the river, and flashed its search-light rays over the sleeping city. The blackened tops of the tall stacks caught the signal, and answered in belching clouds of gray steam that turned to gold as they floated upwards in the morning air. The long rows of the many-eyed tenements cresting the hill blinked in the dazzling light, threw wide their shutters, and waved curling smoke flags from countless chimneys. ”

“ He who would search for them systematically must dive, and if he does not possess the proper costume and accessories his trips below are but brief, and not always profitable. When a diver boasts that he can remain under water two or three minutes—and the boast is very common—he has gauged his endurance by his sensations, not by the clock. ”

“ A long stay by the diver in a single place enables him to test the intelligence of the fishes who visit him. A diver, whose occupation kept him in one spot, was continually surrounded, while at work, by a school of gropers, averaging about a foot in length. ”

“ An expert diver can remain under water for about three minutes. In some of the isles women are accounted the most skilful divers, especially in deep water, where the largest shells are found, some actually measuring eighteen inches across—such beautiful great shields of gleaming mother-of-pearl. ”

“ Slim, a tall, sharp-featured fellow, was our ace diver. Diving—like every other game, including flying and baseball—has its aces. Slim was our Guynemeier, our Walter Johnson. A twin-hitch, ex-service diver, Slim could have pointed to a fancy string of upside-down altitude records as long as your arm. ”

“ The diver comes up howling and incapable of motion and unless companions at once seize and rub him vigorously with salt water until circulation is restored, a process lasting sometimes many hours, he dives no more. ”

“ When the diver reaches the sea bottom he tears off as much sponge within reach as possible, or picks up pearl shells, as the case may be, and then pulls the rope to indicate to the man in the boat that he wishes to be hauled up. But so exhausting is the work, and so severe the strain on the system, that, after a number of dives in deep water, the men often become insensible, and blood sometimes bursts from nose, ears and mouth. ”

“ It is in knowledge as in swimming, he who flounders and splashes on the surface makes more noise and attracts more attention than the pearl diver who quietly dives in quest of treasures to the bottom. ”

“ On a platform of loose planks, the assistants turned their air-mills; a stone might be swinging between wind and water; underneath the swell ran gaily; and from time to time, a mailed dragon with a window-glass snout came dripping up the ladder. . . . To go down in the diving-dress, that was my absorbing fancy; and with the countenance of a certain handsome scamp of a diver, Bob Bain by name, I gratified the whim. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then the diver came up for the last time, and the pearl that he brought with him was fairer than all the pearls of Ormuz, for it was shaped like the full moon, and whiter than the morning star. ”

“ When the diver wishes to come up, he closes the escape valve in his helmet; his dress fills and distends with air, causing a speedy return to the surface, and the tender hauls him alongside by means of the life-line. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For a while I listened at the well without hearing anything.
When a diver comes up after a two minute stay under water he makes a noise like a fat man breathing after a hundred yard dash. I was certain the boy had not taken the air again. ”

“ An hour afterward the raft and all the instruments necessary for the enterprise had drifted down to the bank where the boats were waiting.
The diving-dress is well known. By its means men can descend beneath the waters and remain there a certain time without the action of the lungs being in any way injured. The diver is clothed in a waterproof suit of India rubber, and his feet are attached to leaden shoes, which allow him to retain his upright position beneath the surface. ”

“ There is a flash of brown heels, bubbles and commotion below, and the diver comes up, and chooses and rights his wooden shell and flipper as easily and naturally as a man picks out and assumes his coat and cane at a hall door. ”

“ The diver throws himself on his face, and begins to gather all the pintadines within his reach, placing them in his net. When he wishes to ascend he pulls the signal cord, and is drawn up with all possible expedition. ”

“ When this is full, or he exhausted, he pulls the rope, and is drawn up, leaving the stone to be pulled up after him. When the oysters are very plentiful, the diver may bring up one hundred and fifty at a dip. ”

“ There is something about the occupation of the diver that strongly appeals to the imagination, and with reason, for working fathoms below the surface of the water, in semi-darkness, dependent upon a rickety pump for the breath of life, his trade is at best a perilous and precarious one. Perhaps, that is why divers as a class are opposed to taking apprentices, and that a majority of the men who drift into the calling do so by accident. ”

“ As diving is a very large subject, it is impossible to give in detail all the varied dives. There are three important dives everyone should know—the front, back, and shallow or racing dive. The beauty of diving is in the form.
The Front Dive.—The diver stands erect at the end of the spring board, falls forward, then as the body passes the balance point, the arms are raised straight over the head, knees bent; then spring out so that the body is parallel to water, arms above head; the body is curved downward and enters the water, arms, head, body, and legs forming a straight line. ”

“ But do you think that liquor would ever have improved my brother Jodrey and made him the best deep-sea diver on the Atlantic coast, as he is to-day? No, gents! Where a man needs the strength of his arms, the full power of his ten fingers, the quickness of his brain, and the help of his lungs and a good heart—then he’d better let liquor alone. ”

“ You see how much safer the diver is under these conditions. Most of the danger used to lie in accidents to the air tube. It might get entangled, or cut or bitten by a shark and then it was all up with the diver. Now he’s independent of that. He can work longer at a time and with much greater peace of mind.
“Then too he can see under water much better than he did in the old days. The head piece of this suit I’m talking of has four openings which are fitted with heavy glass, so that he can look out in front or on either side without shifting his position. ”

“ The cabin of a sunken vessel is dark beyond any ordinary conception of darkness, nor do its windows, though they may [623] be seen, alter this darkness. The distrust of his sight grows stronger in the diver with his experience. The eye is accustomed to judge of form, proportion and distance, in a thinner medium, and is continually deceived in a denser one, until experience has taught the diver how to estimate rightly the different impressions. Perhaps the most striking illustration of this difference, the diver finds in trying to drive a nail under water. ”

“ The result was that I pulled the shoe off and my lightened foot was snapped above my head in a finer spread-eagle than any acrobatic dancer ever pulled off. To drag that foot down was beyond my powers, and I tripped and went onto my back. Being up-ended is a diver’s chief peril, because the air bellies up into the legs of the dress and leaves scant supply in the helmet. ”

“ In springing, jump out parallel to the water. The running dive is very similar.
Back Dive.—The diver turns with back to the water, heels over the edge of board into space; the arms are over head, body is curved backward; as the balance point is reached, spring out, turning body as it enters the water.
The position of the head is important. Ducking the head or throwing it too far back, added to stiffness of the body, makes the dive awkward. The legs should never be apart, but together; toes pointed, so that feet are not flat; the fingers should be together. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You hear just a moaning, wailing sound, like the last notes of an organ, and you cannot help thinking of dead men floating over and around you.
“A diver does not like to go down more than a hundred and twenty feet; at that depth the pressure is painful, and there is danger of internal injury. I can stay down, for five or six hours at a time, at a hundred and fifteen or twenty feet, and do a good deal of hard work. In the waters of Lake Huron the diver can see thirty or forty feet away, but the other lakes will screen a vessel not ten feet from you. ”

“ Evidence secured by a departmental commission of the 208Queensland government in 1897, showed that in good weather at a depth of eight or ten fathoms, a diver works from sunrise to sunset, coming to the surface only a few times. ”

“ Of course the descent of a diver over the side was a point of great interest to the passengers, coupled as it was with some anxiety as to the leak, of the existence of which all were fully aware, though only a select few had been informed of its serious nature—if not checked. They crowded round the apparatus therefore, and regarded its arrangement with the deepest interest. ”

“ These are examples of unassisted diving as practised by the Ancients. Their primitive method, however, is still in vogue in some parts of the world—notably in the Ceylon pearl fisheries and in the Mediterranean sponge fisheries, and it may, therefore, be as well to mention the system adopted by the natural, or naked, diver of to-day.
The volume and power of respiration of the lungs vary in different individuals, some persons being able to hold their breath longer than others, so that it naturally follows that one man may be able to stay longer under water than another. ”