The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-05-08
CRU lied LIKE AN EoosHELL

CHO LIED LINE AN EOO9 ~ Z -
Monster Diving bell demolished by the
Pressure of vat
From the Chicago Chronicle
Crushed out of shape as IL by some
giant power, there lies in a junkyard
of Pittsburg what remains of the most
ambitious attempt ever made to con-
struct a diving bell which would defy
the pressure of water at great depths.
This was the invention of Hubert
Schon, a brass moider of Pittsburg
who had given long study to the power
and resistance of metals. He knew
that no diver had ever descended and
worked successfully at a greater depth
than about 100 feet. He had heard of
the diver who went down to work upon
the wreck of the Elbe in the English
channel, and who was hurriedly lifted
unconscious to the surface from a
depth of 40 feet.
Mr.. Schon knew about the old diving
bells and he thought that one made
according to up-to-date scientific prin-
ciples would startle the world by its
achievements. He therefore con-
structed a diving bell made of phos-
phor bronze, fve-eighths of an inch
thick. Each plate was cast on a
fiange and the plates were bolted to-
gether, the bolts being placed as
strength. The side plates were further
strengthened by ribs an inch and two
inches wide. There was an opening for
a lookout on either side of the box and
the heavy glass plates were one inch
in thickness. This novel diving bed
was a cube. six feet high. lgC0
When the diving bell was completed
II weighed $4,000 pounds. It's inventor
expected that IL would easily resist
a Of 10
had not the Sights hesitation in going
down in 1t the first time it was lower
ed into the water. This was in Lake
Michigan, opposite Milwaukee, but
close to the shore. The depth was
about 20 feet. Schon staid down on the
bottom in this bell for about three
hours, and there he smoked, burned
matches. watched the sewerage of the
city float past him and conversed with
his friends above by means of a tele-
phone. liz
The inventor was so delighted with
the result of this experiment that he
wanted TO go down in his diving bell
when 1t was proposed to lower 1t to a
depth of 200 feet II miles from the land.
Only the urgent persuasion of his
friends dissuaded him from this fool
hardy attempt, which would undoubt-
eddy have cost him his life. The div
ing bell had been taken out to that
part of Lake Michigan on a fiat boat,
and there was a party of scientists
present to watch the progress of the
experiment. Before it was lowered
into the water enough ballast had been
attached to the bell to make the whole
apparatus weigh 10000 pounds. But
after it had been lowered into the
water a short distance it was weighed
and was found to weigh only 500
pounds This might have shown what
the pressure of the water would be at
a greater depth. The line had been
marked at intervals of 25 feet, and it
was steadily paid out as the huge bell
sank to the bottom. Before Ii reached
the bottom, however the whole thing
was crushed by the mighty pressure
of the water. This occurred suddenly,
the first the assembled scientists above
knowing about II being the explosion
of a great bubble of air THAT rose to
the surface after escaping from its
confinement in the metal case. The
broken diving bell was then hoisted to
the surface. One of the heavy oak
timbers was driven into itself and
splintered to mach wood. The inch
thick plate glass was almost pulver-
lied.
According to the ropes, the machine
was down 200 feet. but the guage
showed a pres sure of SO pounds. which,
If registered correctly, showed a depth
of 22S feet. But on a basis of 200 feet
the pressure that crushed this SEEM
ingly invulnerable phosphor-bronze
structure was S6S pounds per square
inch or 353,924 pounds to each side of
six feet square. The total pressure
therefore, was 2,723,54S pounds. or 1,S61.7
tons.