Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1904-06-11

IS Charged with air at a high pressure
| this air rushes outward, thus distend-
ing such elastic organs as the eyes and
eardrums to bursting.
Il remember a case where divers
hose broke" said a master diver. He
was at work On a sunken sugar ship.
and he was down some sixty feet. All
at once the air pump handles whized
round like the fiywheels of an engine
when the belt slips off, and, with hiss
| that sounded like a snakes, the hose
came writing and twisting to the sur
| face. Before the tender could yell for
help a great bubble exploded right TN
der him, followed by a string of small
er ones.
"Well, we pulled up that life line all
in one breath. We got that helmet off
and pulled off his suit. We thought
him dead. His eyes bulge6 out till
they looked like fingers, and his ear
drums were blown out like little bal
looms. Around his neck, where the
heavy brass rim of the helmet struck
him, there was a livid black circle
which looked like burned wood. But
he came out of it. He's alive. but life
At depths less than sixty feet the
ordinary diver can work hour after
hour. but below that limit he must take
frequent rests. -Four hours constitute
a days work at all depths. Thus, at
seventy feet he works three-quarters
Of an hour and rests fifteen minutes.
At eighty feet he works forty and rests
twenty minutes. Thus the ratio con-
tinues until at 10 feet few divers can
work more than ten minutes.
When a diver has stayed down too
long, he does not suffer while still in
the water, but after coming to the sur
face. After a prOtracted immersion
his organs do not react as quickly to
the lighter pressure and the swelllngs
from air pushing out through the It's
sues do not subside as rapidly.
Ordinarily the experienced diver as
he slowly descends does not notice any
sensations that are painful. He feels
a cracking OF the eardrums, which he
relieves by keeping his mouth open
and swallowing frequently. He does
not find it much harder to breathe I'M
til he gets very deep, when the air has
a drowsy effect on his senses. On ris-
ing after the usual stay down" the !
crackings of the ears begin again, and
again they may be checked by swal-
lowing, an act which forces air of the
same density as that outside through
the euStachian tubes into the chamber
behind the eardrum. Unless a man
has heart that is perfectly sound and !
lungs that are especially strong he !
should never don the divers armor. !
Even with these he sometimes is COM !
PEELED to abandon submarine work |
after a year or two.
Another peril which the diver en-
counters is the "sOmersauIt." Because |
of the great weight of his helmet he is |
likely to turn turtle despite his lead !
soled boots. In Suda bay, island of /
Crete, diver of the British battleship !
Hood lost his balance while at work |
on a sunken torpedo and hung for five /
hours heels over head under some for
ty feet of water. He had tangled his |
lines with the hawser, which he had |
attached to the torpedo and with which |
his companions above were attempting |
to hoist When rescued at last by a
fellow diver he was found uncon- |
sciouS, but alive. In another half hour,
however, he would have drowned. Be
cause the pressure of air had not been
sufficient water had leaked in and col
lected in the helmet. When he was
found the water had risen to within
quarter Of an inch of his nOstrils. In
tropical waters sharks menace a diver
with such ferocity that he is only safe
when working in great cylindrical
cage.-New York Tribune.