The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-21 00:00:00

THE CATASTROPHE IN THE REGENT'S

PARK.

On Saturday, and again yesterday, the process of
searching the ornamental water in the Regent's
Park continued, and, judging from the number of
spectators present, especially yesterday afternoon,
the late calamity must have excited very wide-
spread interest. Every position from which a view
of the operations upon the lake could be gained was
crowded with lookers-on, who, in reaching the islands
and other prominent points, betrayed their usual
indifference to risk. The police and icemen warned
them as long as warning seemed of the slightest avail,
and then lay by for a time and waited the result.
Those who had reached solid ground there was little
use in disturbing, but hundreds of men and lads, not
content with quietly looking on, engaged in skating
and sliding close to the points where the drags were
at work and the ice was actually being broken and
pulled to shore. The secretary and several mem-
bers of the committee of the Humane Society at
once went upon the ice, and by dint of expostula-
tions and remonstrances induced the majority of
those present to quit a position so full of danger.
Numbers, however, chiefly lads, proved refractory,
and had to be cleared off by a concerted move-
ment of the police and park-keepers, who succeeded
for the remainder of the day in keeping thabice
clear. In running off to avoid the keepers six lads
fell in near the side, and their well-merited ducking
obtained for them little commiseration from the
spectators.

There was this novel feature about the proceed-
ings of the last two days, that the search with
hooks and drags, though still persevered in, became
second in importance to that of the diver. Sug-
gestions had been offered some days before that
an agency of this kind ought to be employed ; but
nothing practical was done in the matter till Mr.
Heinke solicited and obtained from the authorities
permission to conduct the investigation with his
own machinery and at his own expense. Diving
dresses are not matters of every-day use with the
general public, and they may accordingly be ex-
cused for any want of acquaintance with the name
of the gentleman by whom the generous offer was
made. But all who busy themselves in the con-
struction of bridges, docks, or other works under
water know Heinke's diving apparatus as a name of
power. With its aid mails and cargo were recovered
from the wreck of the Colombo just as easily as
watches were lately picked out of the Thames near
Blackfriars-bridge. From the mail-room of the
Malabar, sunk off Point de Galle, £300,000 were
procured by its instrumentality—a feat in accom-
plishing which it was necessary to cut through half-
inch iron plates and to work in nine feet of sand.
Some novel applications (f this apparatus which
have been made from time to time would almost lead
to the belief that diving as an art is in its infancy ;
men have been employed to go down and extin-
guish fires in coal mines, their supplies of air drawn
from above rendering them independent of the
atmosphere below ; and also to cut from the bottom
of a lake weeds which had baffled all attempts from
the surface to stop their growth. The special merit
claimed for the dress lies in so placing the valve that
it may be under the control of the diver. Under
ordinary circumstances the valve is the vent through
which the air escapes from the diver's dress, but,
assuming that a rent or fracture happens at any
point of his accoutrements—say that one of the
glasses of his helmet breaks (as actually occurred
at Westminster-bridge), the diver has only to
shut the valve and the broken glass becomes
itself the valve, the rush of air outwards pre-
venting the water from entering. There is always
great curiosity to see a diver dress, and, as from
the nature of things his toilet in the Regent's
Park was performed somewhat publicly, a short
description may be interesting of the means which
enable one man to sustain life and walk about
for hours with comparative ease in the same sheet
of water and at a similar temperature to that which
in a few minutes proved fatal to scores of his fel-
low-creatures. The diver first removed his shoes,
and then drew on two pairs of long white woollen
stockings reaching nearly to his hips, and pulled a
thick shirt of corresponding material over his shoul-
ders and all his ordinary clothes. Flannel knee-
breeches kept the other garments comfortably toge-
ther ; and the addition of a red nightcap doubled
completed the likeness to one of the white-jacketed
sailors that figure largely in Dutch sea-pieces. The
diving dress proper was next assumed. Take two
of the stoutest waterproof capes, and sew a sheet of
indiarubber between—that is the material ; draw it
on like a sack for running races in, save that each
leg has its own separate pouch to fit into, instead of
one common sack for both feet—and that is the
shape. Heavy boots, with substantial soles of lead,
complete the equipment of the lower man ; the
upper, of course, must be securely cased. Round
what would be in the parallel case the mouth of the
sack, and what in this instance forms the neck of the
diving dress, there are a number of brass studs,
upon which, with the aid of screws, fit brass-plates
shaped to the shoulders, and eventually a cuirass,
about half the length, back and front, of those in
use among the Household troops. This cuirass
closes in the whole of the upper part of the body as
far as the neck, which is left exposed, very much as
if the wearer were about to be guillotined—an im-
pression which is, if possible, strengthened. during
the subsequent screwing on of the gigantic head
piece. One can imagine that it must have formed
an anxious study to the original diving-dressmaker
hew to leave the hands and arms free, and yet to
prevent the water from entering at those extremi-
ties. In the present day the difficulty is sur-
mounted by terminating the sleeves of the div-
ing-dress with stout cuffs of vulcanised india-
rubber, tapered nearly to a point. It requires the
violent efforts of two men, an assistant pulling open
the cuff, and the wearer thrusting his arm forward
as if he were delivering a knock-down blow, before
the hands can be got through, one at a time. A belt
round the waist with a stout knife in a leather
sheath, a line to attach to the ladder when he goes
down, that he may know the point from which he
started, and so calculate the distance traversed, two
501 b. weights fastened to his shoulders, another line
looped round his body, and called " the life line,"
with which to signal to those above, or, in case of
urgent need, to be pulled up by, and the diver's
equipment is complete in all important essentials
but one. Till the last moment the glass-plate in
front of his mouth is not inserted, and the pumping
apparatus must be in regular action before this is
screwed home. Then the diver steps on to his ladder,
one of his comrades surveys him from head to heel to
see that all is right, gives him a friendly tap of dis-
missal on the helmet—a piece of living freemasonry
never omitted—and down he goes. Nothing but a
faint sighing noise has been heard from the air-
pump till the helmet reaches the surface of the water,
and then a rush and bubbling strikes the ear, and
the surface of the water in a limited circle leaps and
dances as if some large fish were sporting about near
the top of the water. The helmet, at first as bright as
silver, seems as it sinks to become oxidized, and
grows darker and darker in colour till it gradually
recedes from sight altogether. Whenever the surface
of the water was not covered with ice the track of
the diver could be traced by the bubbling, and even
where the ice was thin the air could be seen en-
deavouring to escape in large milk-white globules.
As the man plodded about, now with his helmet

close to or above the surface, and now, from the
length of line paid out, evidently down in holes 16
or 17 feet in depth, and at a distance of 40 or 50
feet from the punt, some pardonable uneasiness was
felt by many persons on his account, remembering
_ _ . _ _

that with all his harness ou he carried close on 20011;.

weight, and that the bottom of the lake was over-
laid with thick, soft mud. It was explained, how-
ever, that the diver had at his command three modes
of escape from any difficulty down below. He
could either close the valve and he would float, cut
off the weights and he would float, or he could sig-
nal to those above to pull him up by the life-line.
There were three divers in the Regent's Park yes-
terday and the day before, who each went down in
turn, remaining below from 12 to 25 minutes at a
time, and in the first instance explored thoroughly
that portion of the ornamental water where the great
mass of persons was seen to go down. The result
of their investigations showed the care with which
this spot had been swept by the drags, not a single