Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1907-11-07
WORKING IN A tube"
Remarkable Experience In a Lock
In Compressed Air.
AT FORTY POUNDS PRESSURE

Why You Don't Collapse or Explode.
AS the lockkeeper turns the valve,
writes 4. W. Rolker in Appleton's
Magazine, there is a scalp raising
screech as if your ear were next the
safety valve of a 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-
coming even denser 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 inflict physical pain and
that there is a possibility that it may
kill.
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-
cruciating, as if a pair of knitting nee
dies were being pushed deep into your
ears.
Nothing short of the faith that 9th
ers successfully withstand these SEN
satiOns prevents you from becoming
unduly excited, for actually you are
in the throes of about as disagreeable
situation as you care to meet. For
the eternity of half a 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:
Feeling all right? Ears all right?
No trouble to breathe? Oh, you'll be
all rightr' Again the valve screeches
and the air droneS, the top of your
head thrObs, and you are shaken with
in and without
Gradually, after the lapse Of ten
minutes, when the pressures in the
heading and the lock become more
equalized, the din begins to slacken;
then it falls more and more and fades
to nothing, after which the lOcllman
opens the heading door and you gaze
upon another length of tube" like that
you left behind.
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. Against ev-
cry square foot of the surface of your
body is pressure of 5,76O pounds, and
the only thing that prevents you from
being squashed is the 5,760 pounds
per square foot pressure inside of you,
yet you do not feel this.
The pressure from without is so
great that were it not for the pressure
within you would be smashed fiat as
a toad run over by steam roller, and
the pressure within you is so great
that were it not cOunterbalanced by
the pressure from without you would
explode to atoms like the shell of
dynamite cartridge.
Yet you have no means of realizing
this. You feel perfectly natural. You
breathe normally and without effort.
You move about without being con-
scious of eXertion. Only q feeling as
of water left in the ears after bathing
remains
The noise of rumbling cars and
scraping shoyels from ahead sounds
natural. So does the voice of your
guide. Only your own voice seems
strange in your own ears-far deeper
in pitch than you ever have heard it
and far off, not as if it came from your
own mouth, but as if from ten feet be-
hind; also, and this strikes you queerly
until you have found the cause, all
sounds are chopped off short, for in
this heavy atmosphere there is little
echo and carrying power. Even the
explosion of dynamite cartridge
makes no more noise than a shotgun
fired above in daylight.
In this dense atmosphere were you
to try to whistle with your lips or to
blow a cornet or a fife you might blow
your lungs out without producing a
sound, for the pressure would resist
any sound waves of which your lungs
were capable. Owing to the excessive
supply Of oxygen, were you to light
match it would burn with the rapidity
of finder, amid volumes of smoke.
For the same reason an oil lamp or
q lantern would burn itself out within
q few minutes, emitting volumes Of
SCOT that would completely hide the
flames. And for the same reason a
lighted pipe or cigar will burn of it
self without suction, and a single
mouthful of smoke is all you would be
able to get out of cigarette. Were you
to bring an empty corked bottle into this
pressure from the outside, the pressure
against the cork, unbalanced by pres
sure from within, would be so great
that you would be unable to pull the
stopper These are a few instances of
what you find when under forty
pounds of pressure.
Cobeza di Vaca explored the ella