The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-11-17
WORKING IN TUBE"
Remarkable Experience In Lock
In Compressed Air.
AT FORTY POUNDS PRESSURE

First Opened ard the Chamber Fills
With the inrushins Air and Fog
Why You Don't Collapse or Explode
As the lockkeeper turns the valve,
writes A. 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 inrushiug air ex-
pands 1t 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 r. cket
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 infict physical pain and
that there Is a possibility that 1t may
kill.
No sooner Is the big valve opened
than you feel the pressure against your
col ul uihs "A UlS W du vi COttOu
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 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 u lily you are
in the throes Of about as disagreeab BILE
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 ii
began. Ont Of the fog comes the voice
Of your guide:
Feeling all right? Ears all right:
No trouble to breathe? Oh. you'll be
all right"' Again the valve screeches
anu lhC OH vi OICS, ZIG up vi yum
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 1t falls more and more and fades
to nothing, after which the lockman
ho hno M IN
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 d pressure Of 5.760 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 tnat were it not for the pressure
within you would be smashed fat as
toad run over by steam roller, and
the pressure within you is so great
that were 1t not cOunterbalanced by
the pressure from without you would
explode to atoms like the she'll Of q
dynamite cartridge.
Yet you have no means Of realizing
this. You feel perfectly natural. You
breathe normally aud without effort.
You move about without being con-
scious of exertion. Only a feeling az
Of water left in the ears after bathing
remains.
The noise Of rumbling cars and
scraping shovels 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 of. 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 of short. for in
this heavy atmosphere there is little
echo and carrying poweS> Even the
explosion of n dynamite cartridge