Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1894-09-06
HOW TO TAKE A HEADER.
Points on Diving in Deep and Shailo
Water.

Points on Diving in Deep and Shallow
Water.
"Of what use is diving:' Well, for ex-
ample, in bringing up an object from
the bottom and in saving life, where it
is almost always necessary to dive down
after the body Outside of the purely
utilitarian consideration it is a delightful
sensation and adds greatly to the pleas
ure in swimming. Everybody can learn
to dive and practice it without any bad
results. 1t is held by many persons that
diving produces headache. 1t may do
this at first, but if the diving is done at
the right time of day and not to excess
the temporary rush OF blood 10 the head
will do no harm.
The art of diving is best learned by
gradual approaches. After you are &C
customed to putting your head under
| water and keeping you eyes open, stoop
by the waters edge with your elbows
! resting on your knees and your hands in
the position of a breast stroke. Now
plunge in, but do not open your eyes I'M
| iii your head is under water, striking
! the water with eyes open will cause them
to become bloodshot-
Continue this until you can dive from
a higher posture and finally when stand
ing erect.
The most natural position for a dive
is to hold the arms forward, inclosing
the head as a wedge, the chest inflated,
the knees together. the body bowed slight
ly toward the water. In striking the
water one must be careful not TO fall fiat,
but to throw the legs up in the air and
to cleave the water with the hands.
In swimming under water the breast
stroke is the best. When you want TO
go down deeper raise your hands in max
ing the recovery and when you want to
come up paddle the water down under
your stomach aid chest. The plunge diff
fers from the dive in that the body is
held rigid without moving a muscle. The
great thing here is to have as little, re-
sistance as possible. the head and chest
are thrown back, the legs together and
the feet laid straight out. The swimmer
comes 10 the surface simply by turning
the palms of his hands upward, and de-
sends by turning them downward. The
depths of water in which it is possible to
dive varies as the bulk of the swimmer
and as the angle with which he strikes the
water. A hin man can go deeper than
a heavy one on account of the resistance
of the water. and one man will dive TWEEN
ty-fiye feet into FIVE feet of water without
striking bottom. and another would strike
il from a height of six feet. A good
depth for an average dive is eight feet.
J. b. Johnson. who for some years held
the championship in this line. dived eigh-
ty-ive feet into six feet of water. Last
year a young Swede broke this record
by diving in Lake Michigan a distance of
140 feet. but into water of great depth.
Steve Brodie dropped from Brooklyn
bridge, also 40 feet, in a second and a
half. Before doing so, however. he
weighed his feet down with forty pounds
of lead. which insured his landing right
side up
Salt water is much more buoyant than
fresh. When a diver is sent down 800
feet 10 a sunken vessel he il weighted
down with 800 pounds of lead. 1t is
about impossible tn 20 deeper han this
for the pressure is so great that it almost
brushes the copper head piece, while the
b%uoyancy is such that n diver can scarcely
keep from coming 10 the surface.