THE MECHANISM OF DIVING

The Romance of Modern Mechanism by Archibald Williams is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. CHAPTER XIV

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. Alexander the Great is said to have descended in a machine which kept him dry, while he sought for fresh worlds to conquer below the waves. Aristotle mentions a device enabling men to remain some time under water. This is all the information, and a very meagre total, too, that we get from classical times.

Stepping across 1,500 years we reach the thirteenth century, about the middle of which Roger Bacon is said to have invented the diving-bell. But like some other discoveries attributed to that Middle-Age physicist, the authenticity of this rests on very slender foundations. In a book published early in the sixteenth century there appears an illustration of a diver wearing a cap or helmet, to which is attached a leather tube floated on the surface of the water by an inflated bag. This is evidently the diving dress in its crudest form; and when we read how, in 1538, two Greeks made a submarine trip under a huge inverted chamber, which kept them dry, in the presence of the great Emperor Charles V. and some 12,000 spectators, we recognise the diving-bell, now so well known.

The latter device did not reach a really practical form till 1717, when Dr. Halley, a member of the Royal Society, built a bell of wood lined with lead. The divers were supplied with air by having casks-full lowered to them as required. To quote his own words: "To supply air to this bell under water, I caused a couple of barrels of about thirty gallons each to be cased with lead, so as to sink empty, each of them having a bunghole in its lowest parts to let in the water, as the air in them condensed on their descent, and to let it out again when they were drawn up full from below. And to a hole in the uppermost parts of these barrels I fixed a leathern hose, long enough to fall below the bunghole, being kept down by a weight appended, so that the air in the upper parts of the barrels could not escape, unless the lower ends of these hose were first lifted up. The air-barrels being thus prepared, I fitted them with tackle proper to make them rise and fall alternately, after the manner of two buckets in a well; and in their descent they were directed by lines fastened to the under edge of the bell, which passed through rings on both sides of the leathern hose in each barrel, so that, sliding down by these lines, they came readily to the hand of a man, who stood on purpose to receive them, and to take up the ends of the hose into the bell. Through these hose, as soon as their ends came above the surface of the water in the barrels, all the air that was included in the upper parts of them was blown with great force into the bell, whilst the water entered at the bungholes below and filled them, and as soon as the air of one barrel had been thus received, upon a signal given that was drawn up, and at the same time the other descended, and by an alternate succession, provided air so quick and in such plenty that I myself have been one of five who have been together at the bottom, in nine to ten fathoms water, for above an hour and a half at a time, without any sort of ill-consequence, and I might have continued there so long as I pleased for anything that appeared to the contrary." After referring to the fact that, when the sea was clear and the sun shining, he could see to read or write in the submerged bell, thanks to a glass window in it, the Doctor goes on to say: "This I take to be an invention applicable to various uses, such as fishing for pearls, diving for coral or sponges and the like, in far greater depths than has hitherto been thought possible; also for the fitting and placing of the foundations of moles, bridges, etc., in rocky bottoms, and for cleaning and scrubbing ships' bottoms when foul, in calm weather at sea. I shall only intimate that, by an additional contrivance, I have found it not impracticable for a diver to go out of an engine to a good distance from it, the air being conveyed to him with a continued stream by small flexible pipes, which pipes may serve as a clue to direct him back again when he would return to the bell."

We have italicised certain words to draw attention to the fact that Dr. Halley had invented not only the diving bell, but also the diving dress. Though he foresaw practically all the uses to which diving mechanism could be put, the absence of a means for forcing air under pressure into the bell or dress greatly limited the utility of his contrivances, since the deeper they sank below the water the further would the latter rise inside them. It was left for John Smeaton, of Eddystone Lighthouse fame, to introduce the air-pump as an auxiliary, which, by making the pressure of the air inside the bell equal to that of the water outside, kept the bell quite free of water. Smeaton replaced Halley's tub by a square, solid cast-iron box, 50 cwt. in weight, large enough to accommodate two men at a time. The modern bell is merely an enlarged edition of this type, furnished with telephones, electric lamps, and, in some cases, with a special air-lock, into which the men may pass when the bell is raised. The pressure in the air-lock is very gradually decreased after the bell has reached the surface, if work has been conducted at great depths, so that the evil effects sometimes attending a sudden change of pressure on the body may be avoided.

Diving bells are very useful for laying submarine masonry, usually consisting of huge stone blocks set in hydraulic cement. Helmet divers explore and prepare the surface on which the blocks are to be placed. Then the bell, slung either from a crane on the masonry already built above water-level, or from a specially fitted barge, comes into action. The block is lowered by its own crane on to the bottom. The bell descends upon it and the crew seize it with tackle suspended inside the bell. Instructions are sent up as to the direction in which the bell should be moved with its burden, and as soon as the exact spot has been reached the signal for lowering is given, and the stone settles on to the cement laid ready for it.

The modern diver is not sent out from a bell, but has his separate and independent apparatus. The first practical diving helmet was that of Kleingert, a German. This enclosed the diver as far as the waist, and constituted a small diving bell, since the bottom was open for the escape of vitiated air. Twenty years later, or just a century after the invention of Halley's bell, Augustus Siebe, the founder of the present great London firm of Siebe, Gorman, and Company, produced a more convenient "open" dress, consisting of a copper helmet and shoulder-plate in one piece, attached to a waterproof jacket reaching to the hips.

The disadvantage of the open dress was, that the diver had to maintain an almost upright position, or the water would have invaded his helmet. Mr. Siebe therefore added a necessary improvement, and extended the dress to the feet, giving his diver a "close" protection from the water.

We may pass over the gradual development of the "close" dress and glance at the most up-to-date equipment in which the "toilers of the deep" explore the bed of Old Ocean.

The dress—legging, body, and sleeves—is all in one piece, with a large-enough opening at the shoulders for the body to pass through. The helmet, with front and side windows, is attached by a "bayonet joint" to the shoulder-plate, itself made fast to the upper edge of the dress by screws which press a metal ring against the lower edge of the plate so as to pinch the edge of the dress.

At the back are an inlet and an outlet valve. Between the front and a side window is the transmitter of a loud-sounding telephone, and in the crown the receiver and the button of an electric bell. The telephone wires, and also the wires for a powerful electric light, working on a ball-and-socket joint in front of the dress, are embedded into the life-line. The air-tube, of canvas and rubber, has a stiffening of wire to prevent its being throttled on coming into contact with any object. A pair of weighted boots, each scaling 17 lbs., two 40-lb. lead weights slung over the shoulder, and a knife worn at the waist-belt, complete the outfit of the diver, which, not including the several layers of underclothing necessary to exclude the cold found at great depths, totals nearly 140 lbs. Of this the copper helmet accounts for 36 lbs.

On the surface are the air-pumps, which may be of several types—single-cylinder, double-acting; double-cylinder, double-acting; or three or four cylinder, single-acting—according to the nature of the work. All patterns are so constructed that the valves may be easily removed and examined.

The pressure on a diver increases in the ratio of about 414 lbs. for every ten feet he descends below the surface. A novice experiences severe pains in the ears and eyes at a few fathoms' depth, which, however, pass off when the pressures both inside and outside of the various organs have become equalised. On rising to the surface again the pains recur, since the external pressure on the body falls more quickly than the internal. The rule for all divers, therefore, is "slow down, slow up." 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.

In spite of the dangers and inconveniences attached to his calling, the diver finds in it compensations, and even fascinations, which outweigh its disadvantages. The pay is good—£1 to £2 a day—and in deep-sea salvage he often gets a substantial percentage of all the treasure recovered, the percentage rising as the depth increases. Thus the diver Alexander Lambert, who performed some plucky feats during the driving of the Severn Tunnel,[18] received £4,000 for the recovery of £70,000 worth of gold from the Alphonso XII., sunk off Grand Canary. Divers Ridyard and Penk recovered £50,000 from the Hamilla Mitchell, which lay in 160 feet of water off Shanghai, after nearly being captured by Chinese pirates; and we could add many other instances in which treasure has been rescued from the maw of the sea.

The most useful sphere for a diver is undoubtedly connected with the harbour work and the cleaning of ships' bottoms. For the latter purpose every large warship in the British Navy carries at least one diver. After ships have been long in the water barnacles and marine growths accumulate on the below-water plates in such quantities as to seriously diminish the ship's speed, which means a great waste of fuel, and would entail a loss of efficiency in case of war breaking out. Armed with the proper tools, a gang of divers will soon clean the "foul bottom," at a much smaller cost of time and money than would be incurred by dry-docking the vessel.

The Navy has at Portsmouth, Sheerness, and Devonport schools where diving is taught to picked men, the depth in which they work being gradually increased to 120 feet. Messrs. Siebe and Gorman employ hundreds of divers in all parts of the world, on all kinds of submarine work, and they are able to boast that never has a defect in their apparatus been responsible for a single death. This is due both to the very careful tests to which every article is subjected before it leaves their works, and also to the thorough training given to their employés.

In the sponge and pearl-fishing industries the diving dress is gradually ousting the unaided powers of the naked diver. One man equipped with a standard dress can do the work of twenty natural divers, and do it more efficiently, as he can pick and choose his material.

This chapter may conclude with a reference to the apparatus now used in exploring or rescue work in mines, where deadly fumes have overcome the miners. It consists of an air-tight mask connected by tubes to a chamber full of oxygen and to a bag containing materials which absorb the carbonic acid of exhaled air. The wearer uses the same air over and over again, and is able to remain independent of the outer atmosphere for more than an hour. The apparatus is also useful for firemen when they have to pass through thick smoke.

FOOTNOTE:

18. Vide The Romance of Modern Engineering, p. 212.

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