Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1871-08-18
DIED OF A BROKEN HEART.
A DIVERS STORY.


1T was horrible, fearful sight to
look down through the thick waters on
that white-faced woman, with a thou
sand agonies, it seemed to me, impress
ed on the swollen features, or looking
through the set, staring, CLASSY eyes, as
she lay on the deck, holding her twin
babies in her arms, Gfeless and d s.
torted as herself, said the diver, in
tones low and sad, shuddering, as he
spoke.
"Of this woman and her babies ?"
asked.
He did not appear to comprehend, or
if he did, ignored my question.
How very still it is-away down
twenty fathoms below the surface of the
waters. 1t is only when you are in the
depths where absolute silence reigns,
with the fair light of the sun far above
you, that terror steals slowly but surely
into the stoutest heart. On the sands
of the ocean bed, or clambering over
the deck and debris of ship that once
plowed the waves gallantly amid storm
and calm, you learn how insignificant
even the boldest man really is. En-
cased in armor, and with a great helmet
covering your head, through the thick
glass plate of which you look out upon
the waters that everywhere envelop
and press upon you, you have but a
small air-pipe between you and eterni-
ty. Let that break, or become en-
tangled so that you lose for a single
minute the fresh air that is pumped
through it from the apparatus above,
and you may never again, With your
physical eyes, look on the fair, inviting
world, that is so near, and yet so far,
as the song has it. Let, repeat, that
little, fragile tube, of no stronger mate
rial than India rubber or gutta percha,
be knotted or torn, and asphyxia would
on the instant follow, and when, if ever,
you were drawn up to the surface, it
would be as a corpse"
GIVE followed this business of diving
for upward of twenty years." continued
jackson, as he stood at the end of the
boat, in his diving apparel, his helmet
at his feet, and which in a minute could
subaqueous explorations, and [ never
yet could feel Indifferent when I enter
ed the water and gradually fell, as it
were, through an element that as [ de-
scended became more and more ener-
getic in it's resistance to my downward
progress and it is this very resisting
force that makes the fl cling of dread
come into the mind, for should the lit
tie air-pipes fail, millions of tons of wa
ter are on the divers head ready to
crush him as you could an egg-shell be-
tween your fingers.
"But there is another thing that
makes my profession, if not hazardous,
tedious and laborious. | have been at
lines from three to four hours at work
upward of hundred feet below the sur
face of the sea, on wreck, and, when
at length worn out, have signaled to
reascend, it was with an involuntary
prayer that might never descend again
alone. Yes, sir that's the exact word
alone. 1t is dreadful, always, to feel
that you are cut from your fellows with
semi-transparent barrier of twenty
fathoms, and only this little, flexible
pipe to sustain strength as we'll as
life
~ remember once how very near |
came to being suffocated in my armor,
tliNt Stl1 OCSttOSC vi OIiC VI viz
man above, whose business it was to in
terpret the signals. l had been sent
down to examine an emigrant ship that
had sunk in twenty fathoms. Her
masts had been swept overheard in a
dreadful storm of the coast, and when,
carrying nearly two hundred souls, she
came within sight of land, she settled
very unexpectedly in the water, and
as she sank to the bottom, all those
souls, save boats crew, were carried
with her.
jackson paused, and involuntarily, it
seemed to me, passed his big, horny
hands over his brows and eyes. There
were, when he removed them, tears in
the latter.
THAT was an awful visit to the dead,
of which | came near being one myself.
There, on the deck of the sunken ship,
were dozens of human corses. Some
there were standing by the rigging
the vessel had settled squarely on her
keel-others holding to the rails, and
here and there groups of men, women,
and children-husbands, wives, sisters
and brothers standing or kneelinS