The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1901-03-08
STORIES OF DIVERS
IN The DEEP SEAS
Experienced Deliver in Ocean Depths
Skaters a Few Popular
Fallacies.
THE MYTHICAL SHARK STORIES
Men ain Armor" Are Not Attacked by the
Finny Monsters-Dangers of avastly
Different Sort Concern
Them.

Manhattan, from the little up
Staten island, is distant Mont St.
Michael of sheer donjon walls and
crowded towers, ever novel and ever
picturesque. But it is with the gilt
tering blue sweep Of the upper bay
and not the piled-up point of land.
that the window of this room mainly
concerns itself For it is the quarters
of the head diver of great wrecking
company and, from it those who go
down to the sea in ships are regarded
with an eye not uninterested, but
wholly inauspicious.
The furnishings of the room could
hardly be paralleled elsewhere in all
the four boroughs. About the walls
stand a dozen suits of armor," in
which the wearers, as compared with
the most bulbously angular of the
knights of the middle ages, would be
mighty, bull-headed walruses to the
sleekest and tamest of fur seals. There
are huge copper helmets bullying like
the 'sinciputs' of gigantic dragon
flies, each with single eye horribly
Cyclopean, or with "trinoculars" no
less alarming. There are ballast-belts
plagued with bars Of lead the size of
fireplace tiles; boots, of which the
inch-thick, cast-iron soles would be
the envy of the most ponderously hob
nailed of English yokels; rubber suits.
shapeless, loose and "baggy as an ele-
plants trousers" lead pipe enough to
stock a plumbers and covered rubber
tubing ample to equip a miniature fire
brigade-it Is, altogether, an awe-in-
spring batterie.
Dispening Shark Tradition.
Although thoroughly alive to the in
teresting phases Of his business and
we'll able to put the romance of under
sea work into words, Mr.. Dwyer Is
as little desire to talk about himself
and his experiences as II he had to
send his words up through a seventy
pound pressure and use much precious
air in uttering them, but the hopeless
cropping Of questions drew him insid-
iously into speech, writes A. E. Nc
Farlane in the New York Commercial
Advertiser. The mooting of the diver
devouring shark tradition proved al
together 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 II
you happen to drop an eighteen-carat
y
harpoon the first 'seawolf' 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 II you tried, could you? Well, I
guess that's about the way 1t Is with
the sharks that swallow divers. Such
deep-sea stories make very thrilling
reading, but you can't seem to locate
the men concerned in them.
Nov, to come down to hard fact,
there's been scores Of times when I've
been swinging under ships. scraping
their bottoms, cleaning strainers or re-
pairing propellers. with sharks swim
ming about me constantly. and they
I weren't small ones some OF them would
easily measure fifteen or twenty feet;
but I've never yet been bothered by
one. And, what's more. I've never met
any other diver who has been, either.
I'd put 1t down among the facts Tn
most prepared to swear to that sharks
don't attack men In armor' at all.
suppose II green hand were to drop
down without making any noise into
the hold OF q wreck with shark inside
it-and there's no place they like for
q hang out better-it might make q
. 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
frighten any such tenant out and away.
IT'S the easiest kind Of a safeguard; and
1t 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
being as cruel and fierce, as the land
variety.
There Are Real Dangers.
.But IL we aren't bothered by sharks,
& we have other dangers to contend with
that don't appear on the surface.
There is the heavy piece of wreckage
treacherously balanced. or held by q
+ rotted rope, ready to fall after You have
passed unexpectedly under it. catch
ing your air.hose and lifeline beneath
II, and cutting OF your retreat. There
I 10 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 get up nor down. II
there Ia no other diving outfit on the
supply hoax itss going to go hard with
sou then. But, - q matter Of fact. all
3 old diving gangs take such precautions
Il that acct dentA IN now as uncommon In
eur bushes a IN any other. IF we
seats = man on who wont learn to be
cautious We sifnnly drop him OF and
that ail there u about II. We let him
+ nj HIS own undertakers bills: there's
Us place for them IN our business.
but what danger there Ii we soon
Lore count OF. The fun IN the business
aticks n my mind better. And we have