The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-05-01 00:00:00

THE DIVER FLEUSS.

The Times of Tuesday gave the following description of
the first appearance of Mr. Fleuss. at the Royal Aquariun?,
Westminster, on Monday night, wian the efficiency of his
new diving apparatus was tested, in the large tank built for
the whale and used by the seals.
The remarkable performance of Mr. Fleuss under
water was better seen than it has been elsewhere
either during the few months of the exhibition of his
apparatus at the Polytechnic or at Brighton. He can
stay under water for five hours without an air tube
or any other communication with the surface; and
this absence of incumbrance gives him much greater
freedom than other divers possess. He can, for
instance, lie down and bend his body in any position
without fear of being lifted or floated up and without
suffering from the obstruction of the long pipe
which usually connects the head of a diver with
a boat above. In short, he possesses the principal
advantage which distinguishes an animal from
a plant; he moves independently instead of being
rooted to one spot. Fore-shortened in the water, he
presents a curious appearance, with great goggle eyes
in his burnished helmet, a strong water-tight dress,
and water-boot. The spectators amuse themselves by
throwing pence for him to aick up, or by writing
messages to him on cardboard, which he reads and
answers on cardboard, always under water. He
sharpens his pencil under water, gives and receives
signals with a cord, and is to experiment on the sub-
marine use of the telepone. At Ryde he walked for a
quarter of a mile under the sea; at Brighton he went
down in five fathoms by the chain pier in rough
.oather. If he could eat under water, Mr. Fleuss
says he could stay for 'a longer period than the five
hours which he gives as the ordinary limit. Yester-
day afternoon he remained two hours and seven
minutes under water in the Aquarium, and again went
down for half an hour in the evening.

In a short lecture on his apparatus which Mr.
Fleuss gave in the evening immediately on returning to
the upper air, he stated that his method is no secret,
that it is patented, and that the specifications are
accordingly published. In every draught of breath we
draw we take in a certain amount of oxygen with
four times as much nitrogen. A little of the oxygen
becomes fixed in the form of carbonic acid, and the
air thus deteriorated becomes unfit to breathe. If, how-
ever, the place of the missing oxygen is taken by a
fresh supply, the mixture becomes again fit for breath-
ing. According to Mr. Fleuss, he 'takes down corn-
piessed oxygen to supply the place of that which
is breathed; in other words, he has invented a set
of anti-lungs which perform a function precisely the
reverse of that of the lungs proper. This was con-
fessedly a rough, popular, hasty, and generalized ex-
planation. A more scientific account may be ex-
pected from the lecture on the subject which Dr. B.
W. Richardson, F.R.S., who is specially qualified for
the investigation by his well-known experiments on
ozone is to be delivered at the Society of Arts. It
will be remembered that it was to the same Society
that Professor Tyndall explained the fireman's res-
pirator, which has since proved in practice so valuable
an instrument in straining the bad air at fires beftre
it reaches the lungs, and so enabling the fireman to
breathe what air is left among smoke and noxious
vapours. Mr. Fleuss's method is still more effectual,
because he carries his own supply of oxygen with
him in a compressed form, and has thus been able to
breathe in an atmosphere in which there is no appre-
ciable quantity of air at all. He states that he has
gone through fire-damp (carburetted hydrogen), choke-
damp (carbonic acid), and could exist in the charged
receiver of a gas factory. In the great helmet and in
the hollows of his armour there is room for a certain
quantity of air, and this kept fresh and constantly
renewed by a stream of oxygen, the pressure of which
he regulates by a tap at will. To refresh himself he
increases the flow cf oxygen, and when he requires no
stimulus diminishes it.
Mr. Fleuss is a young and
.vigorous man, who has
gerved in the steamboats of the Peninsular and
Oriental Companey. His apparatus is eertainly very
ingenious and effective and well worthy of attention.