The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1874-08-06
An Amateur Divers Peril.

Some time ago a canal boat laden
with steel rails was sunk of Tivoli,
Hudson river, and the services of sub
marine diver were required. During
his operations he was watched with the
deepest interest by the villagers, and
few days since the telegraph operator
expressed desire to don the submarine
armor and 60 below to explore the mys-
terious depths of the river, the water
being fifty feet deep. The owner of the
armor, who is an old hand at the bust
ness acceeded to the operators request,
and arrangements were at once made to
send him down." What followed is
best described by himself.
"Slowly sank out of sight and dur
ing the first twenty feet Of my descent
the water around me was plainly visible,
and could also see inside the helmet
could see all of foot off outside. Grad
ually darkness came, and slowly in
creased in intensity until my eyes were
useless, and 1 could almost feel the
gloom. 1t was then that l began to feel
uncomfortable. The pressure of the
water as kept going down was tremend-
Gus, and my head felt bad, and now and
then there was sharp pain in my ears.
Had also great desire to reach bottom,
for it seemed us though / was poised in
dull, heavy air. Suddenly bottom was
reached, when l experienced a great
sense of relief, and commenced to grope
about me. All was still except the
roaring of the pump above, every
stroke of which could distinctly hear.
The air was escaping from my helmet
fast, and it sounded like the boiling of a
large pot of water. This noise was all at
once Interrupted by sharp, swapping
sound, and felt for the life-cord, fearing
that something had happened but could
not find it In coming down / carried
with me some tackling to fasten to
stump in the bottom of the river. In
my descent the current turned me round
and round, and much of the gearing, in
Guiding the life-cord and tackling, being
tangled so that when felt for the cord,
which l had ought to have found in
stantly, it could not be quickly separated
SO as to work easily. All sound of any
description then ceased, sense of drOws-
mess came over me. knew that the
escape valve had closed and was breath
ing foul air. Finally securing the life
cord, / signalled for more air, and could
hear the pump run at an increased
speed, but it was to no purpose, as by
constant use the pistons had become so
worn they could not give the requisite
pressure. became alarmed, and it was
hard to breathe, and my strength began
! to fail me. could do nothing to help
myself. seemed to increase in size, UNI
til my head felt as though it must burst,
and the foul gas ! breathed seemed as if
ithad been heated in furnace. thought
should die. The most horrible sensa-
| ton came over me. Finally l exhausted
all the air from the suit, and then came
tremendous pressure upon my body on
| all Sides 1t was terrible. My eyes felt
as though they would burst from their
sockets. My legs expanded, and so did
my arms and body, till it seemed as
though they too would burst, and then
came Inconsistencies. When reason re-
turned soft light seemed to steal over
me, and began to awake, and after a
time opened my eyes and found myself
on the surface of the water. could see
the boat on which were my friends, but
all of them had weird look and their
proportions were gigantic, the smallest
boy among them surprising in size the
famous Cardiff giant.
AS quickly as possible I was hauled on
board the vessel, and the helmet was re-
moved. The sensation produced by the
admission of the cold air was the same
as that produced by the drenching sud-
denly of sleeper with ice water. How
ever, 1 soon recovered my strength and
congratulated myself on my very narrow
escape from DEATH"
1t seems that after he was let down,
the diver who owned the armor was
somewhat doubtful in regard to the
power of the air pump, and finding from
the sense of feeling that he was doing
nothing on the bed of the river, signalled
several times but got no answer. Those
on the vessel saw his countenance change
to ashy white. Then the alarm became
general, and all possible haste was made
to get the diver to the surface.