Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-11-07
WORKING IN 4 TUBE

Remarkable Exp rience Ii a 1. COX
IN compre kir.
AIT FORTY POUNDS PRESSURE
The Way It Feels When the Valve is 1
First Opened and the Chamber Fills
With the inrushing Air and Fog.
II Why You Don't Collapse Or Explode.
As the lockkeeper turns the valve,
writes "a. w. Rolker in Appleton,s
Magazine, there is d scalp raising
screech as If your ear were next the 1
safety valve of locomotive blowing
steam, and as the inrushing air ex
pands it fills the tiny chamber with
fog SO dense that you cannot see your
hand before your eyes Wider and
wider the valve is opened, the fog be- 4
coming even denser5 and the racket
increasing until the air fairly drones
and your eyes and eardrums and your
very scalp tremble with the air that
is vibrating about you For the first
time in your life you realize that
sound may inhict physical pain and
that there is d possibility that 1t may
kill
s No sooner is the big valve opened
than you feel the pressure against your
eardrums. A big wad of cotton seems
thrust into each ear, and two big fin
gers seem to push the wads more and
more firmly until each time when you.
swallow or blow into your nose the
sensation disappears only to begin
anew Should you purposely delay
swallowing, within twenty seconds the
pain becomes intense and finally ex-
crueiating, as if a pair of knitting nee
dies were being pushed deep into your
ears. q a
Nothing short of the faith that 9TH
ers successfully withstand these sem
sations prevents you from becoming
unduly excited, for actually you are
in the throes of about as disa greeable
"a situation as you care to meet. For
the eternity of half minute the
racket and fog and ear pains continue.
Then the, noise ceases as suddenly as it
began Out Of the fog comes the voice
! OF your guide: u
feeling all right? Ears all right?
No trouble to breathe Oh, you'll be
! all right!' Again the valve screeches
and the air drones. the top of your
head throbs, and you are shaken with
4 in and without
Gradually, after the lapse of ten
4 minutes, when the pressures in the
/ heading and the lock become more
l8equaIized, the din begins to slacken
then it falls more and more and fades
/ to nothing, after which the lockman
/ opens the heading door and you gaze
! upon another length of tube" like that
you left behind. si
4 ~ q How does it feel to be under forty
pounds pressure? There is no sensa-
ton to it-none whatever-which is
the trouble. for in case your heart is
going to give out there is no warning
symptom until too late. IA gainst eF-
cry square foot of the surface of your
body is a pressure of $3.50 pounds. and
the only thing that prevents you from
being squashed is the $3.50 pounds
4 per square foot pressure inside of you,
! yet you do not feel this.
IS The pressure from without is SC
/ great that We're it not for the pressure
/ within you would be smashed fiat as
4 a toad run over by a steam roller. and
1 the pressure within you is so great
i that were it not counterbalanced by
the pressure from without you would
explode to atoms like the shell Of a
dynamite cartridge.
Yet you have no means of realizing
!. this. You feel perfectly natural. You
4 breathe normally and without effort
i You move about without. being con.
scious of exertion. Only a feeling as
4 of water left in the ears after bathing
4 remains.
The noise of rumbling cars and
* SC1dptuS zSHUSSiS Ia tIOLA uucau SSuuus
Z natural So does the voice Of YOU
i guide. Only your own voice seems
strange in your own ears-far deeper
in pitch than you ever have heard II
and far of. not as If it came from yoal
own mouth. but as if from ten feet be
hind; also. and this strikes You queerly
until you have found the cause. al
i sounds are chopped OF short, for il
4 this heavy atmosphere there, is little
echo and carrying power. Even the
| explosion of a dynamite cartridge
q makes no more noise than a shotgun
fired above in daylight.
a In this dense atmosphere were YOU
4 to try TO whistle with your lips or K
blow d cornet or a fife you might blow
Il your lungs ont without producing l
4 sound, for the pressure would resis
any sound waves of which your lungs
We're capable Owing to the excessive
4 supply OF oxygen, were you to light ;
H match Ii would burn with the rapidit,
of finder, amid volumes of smoke.