The Savannah morning news., 1901-01-05

tfies; boots, of which the inch-thick. cast
iron lsoles would be the envy of the most
generously hob-nailed of English yokels;
RUBBER suits, shapeless, loose and 'baggy
as an elephants trousies;" lead pipe
enough TO stock plumbers, and covered
rupper tubing ample to equip a miniature
hre pfigade-it is, altogether, an awe-in-
spring "batterie."
Although thoroughly alive to the inter-
esung phases of his business, and well
able to put the romance of under-sea
work into words, Mr. Dwyer is a very
quiet and retiring man; he has as little
desire TO talk about himself and his ex
perlenees as if he had to send his words
up through a seventy-five-pound pres
sure and use up much precious air in ut
terlng them, but the hopeless cropping of
questions drew him insidiously into
speech. The mootng of the diver-de-
Vouring shark tradition proved altogether
too much for him-"Yes. I've heard about
those sharks" he said, land I've been
looking for them for about twenty-five
years. You know If you happen to drop
an eighteen carat thermometer overheard
on Cuba, and harpoon the first 'sea-wolt
you come across off Trinidad, you know
what you'll find lying snug in his crop,
don't you? Couldn't help getting the
watch back if you tried could you? Wei,
/ guess that's about the way it is with
the sharks that swallow divers. Such
deep-sea stories make very thrilling read
ing, but you can't seem TO locate the men
concerned in them. Now, to come down
to hard fact, there's been scores OF times
when I've been swinging under ships
scraping their bottoms, cleaning strain
ers, or repairing propellers, with sharks
swimming about me constantly, and they
weren't small ones; some of them would
easily measure fifteen or twenty feet; but
I've never yet been bothered bp one. And
what's more I've never met any DINER
diver who has been, either. I'd put
down among the facts I'm most prepar-
ed to swear to that sharks dont attack
men in armor' at all. l suppose II
green hand were to drop down without
making any noise, into the hold of a
wreck with a shark inside it--and there's
no place they like for a hang-out better
it might make a dart at him. But any
man who knows anything about his work
at all would hammer on the sides or the
deck of the vessel before he went IN.
That would brighten any such tenant out
and away. It's the easiest kind OF sate-
guard; and it shows. too, what towards
the beasts are. They're not called sea
wolves for only one reason; they're as
far from having any natural pluck, as
well as cruel and fierce, as the land va
riety.
The Real Dangers.
But il we aren't bothered by sharks,
we have other dangers to contend with
n at don't appear on the surface. There
is the heavy piece of wreckage treacher-
otlslv balanced. or held by a rotted rope
ready to fall after you have passed UNI
suspectingly under it, catching your air.
hose and life line beneath it, and cutting
off your retreat There is the broken
spar, or, worse, a split piece of iron or
steel to tangle your gear, often out OF
your reach SO that you can neither se
upynor down. If there is no other diving
outfit on the supply boat, it's going to so
hard with you them But, as a matter OF
fact all old diving gangs take such pre-
cautions that accidents are now as I'M
common in our business as in any other
II we get a man on who won't learn to
be cautious. we simply drop him off. and
that's all there is about it. We let him
pay his own undertaker's bills; there's
no place. for them in our business.
But what danger there is we soon
lose count of. The fun in the business
sticks in my mind better. And we have
more of II ,Aan you'd perhaps imagine.
remember once on the Ohio when We were
working at some old stumps on the bot
tom that had been giving considerable
bother to navigation; I was down putting
chain around big pine snag, when an
old darkey padded out to our tug with
pawpaws and apples ih:lhis ha teau ITO sell
to the men; we had quite "a gang or 0the
JOB Wen pretty soon he caught sight Of
my tender gazing down INTO the Water
and holding the hose and line and i'm
mediately wanted to know what he was
fishing for. The tender who was Irish.
pl omptly answered that he was fishing
for the devil just at that moent I sig
nailed TO be urawn up and when my
helmet came above water with a hiss Of
escaping air, the first thing l saw was old
Uncle Ned standing straight up in his
beat, his eyes fairly sticking out of his
head He yelled: My Lawd he's caught
him. toov and went overheard like a bull
frog. He never stopped swimming till
ne struck the Kentucky shore.
Another thing happened when we were
saving what odds and ends we could from
the Maine. You must remember that the
after end of the ship was almost complete
ly submerged, and there was no wood
work above water. When knocking about
for something to send up, 1 came across
large copper life buoy such as can be
seen hanging a the stern of all our war
ships. AS it had an iron cage or guard
over 1t, | had to force ii down, II it was
to be released and float up to the sur
face. In doing so l opened the torch
attachment, which contains chemical
which bursts into a bright flame on con-
tact with air 1 had just noticed the sill
very bubbles rising, when l was dragged
hastily to the surface, and as soon as
my helmet was removed l was informed
by the excited tender that the wreck
was on fire. Sure enough, there were
bursts of flame on the surface, but they
didn't happen to be within five feet of any
part of the Maine showing above wateri
That didn't make any difference, however
to some of the men; for, before 1 knew
what they were at they had coupled on
the fire hose, and were standing off
squirting water on Havana bayi Talk
about setting the Thames on fire, I'd
started bigger blaze than that. And for
good ten minutes-till l could stop
laughing and explain things, in fact-they
continued to play the hose on valiantly.
From its very nature, deep-sea work is
sometimes very beautiful ones. What
saw alongside the wreck of Viscaya
would have made any artist crazy with
delight 1t was a perfect summer day,
warm, bright sunshine, and not a breeze
stirring The water was so clear and
smooth that, although l was thirty-fve
feet down, / could plainly see the bubbles
which had escaped from my helmet float
ing like balls of mercury on the surface.
Every object within thirty yards of me
Dame out as clean and fresh-co lored as
If seen through the lenses of a camera.
And. with that, everything was arranged
] aA in hD al