The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-03

oAy SeH-lhe ar made In Germany. They're ready to go. Their mouthpieces are closed, still you don't want. to close yours.
 Forgetting to close, the mouthpiece,' '' MT. Brown is saying ''has been respon- sible for the helmet men getting overcome in more instances than you can count. That's where the main danger lies. The ymouthpiece must be closed ae y-ou turn on the oxygen"
 You then reluctantly close the mouth piece and shut out the last atom of good Amepican oxygen, and with some fore boding, tumble around and at length turn on the air made in Germany. You feel then that something strange is bound to happen. The straps buckling the 40 pound apparatus to your back cut into your chest and you think it is your lungs becoming stricken. You turn to MT. Billy Hausman, who is marching along the corridor to the gas tight room, with "Dobbie'' and MT. Penhallegon, all as brave as the charging six hundred. Billy. do your lungs feel all right or kind of queer?" you ask. Why, they feel all right" says Billy, as if he was used to false lungs and Ger l man oxygen all his life. l Tn fact, not member of that intrepid class evidently had a single qualm say. ing just yourself! You are morally. cer. tain that your own helmet simply isn't going to ''worlk" just right Upon determ- l ming, however, that nobody else's lungs i are in the least affected you conclude that it's simply your imagination in combina- tion with the knapsack straps.
 Cross the Rubicon You enter then the gas tight room, i where the formaldehyde fumes are smouldering. The instructor. wearing no helmet is forced to bolt. But you smell nothing, breathe nothingl You feel per 1 fectly normal, perfectly natural. 1 Barring the weight of the apparatus there is no special discomfort In few moments you lose the quavery feeling. l That German oxygen is all right. You | breathe just as easily, and just as good air as out in the sunshine. Nothing hap pens
 1 But the voices sound away of, untitled ] and distant. You feel as if you were deaf. l All of you look at each other. A group of deep sea divers-that's what you loos l like. Or, reaching out to fancy a group | of knights in armour gathered in the den | of an aged necromancer who, half | shrouded in poisonous vapors, seeks | 10 evolve the elixir of life l In the dim recesses of the mine there | would be no end to fancy's call. but here 1 in a brand new empty room, with clean, white walls and shining woodwork and all in the broad daylight. everything, after l all, simply turns out exactly as it is. And | it is all quite matter of fact. 1 Mr. Penhallegon and MT. Hausman have a boxing match and their air is all | punched out of their rubber lungs where at some 'gasping follows. Then one mar l fals prostrate and the rest carry him right othe stinging vapors of formalde- | hyde, which are the same to him as the l fresh morning dew--if his helmet doesn't 1 leak
 Woe to him whose helmet leaks or r l some way becomes loosened. 1 Just as you felt so morally certain sucl a fate would befall you, so it comes tc pass,
 l You have failed to press the bulb con | trolling the pneumatic washer of youi 1 helmet quite tight enough and in the ex. l ercising it becomes loosened. Without g | seconds warning one awful whiff attacks your nostrls and blinds and chokes you. Out you go, on the run, and faint, dizzy nauseated, you sink down in the outer air. The instructor. right on the spot | has off your helmet before you can speak and your first lesson is learned. What you want to do next is get tht helmet tighter to start with, and beside! you want to believe in the helmet more
 Taking It Easy You then become the "audience" ant sit comfortably in the observation room and watch the other fellows work Tn, regular schedules outlined by James w Paul are as follows:
 SCHEDULE NO. l. 1 1. Walk 10 laps. equal to one-fifth of : | mile.
 g. Carry six props over overcast ant l wedge up under collars.
 g. Carry brattice cloth over overcas and stretch up at place designated
 Load 10 brick in a gunny sack, carr. overcast, and turn te point where found.
 5. Saw. four pieces off a log prop.
 6. Take down brattce and return t
 place where found
 T. Take down props and return to poin
 where found.
 8. Alternate pulling a weight machin
 50 times and walking five laps until tn hour is completed.
 SCHEDULE NO. 2. 1. Walk 20 laps, equivalent to two-fifth
 of a mile.
 2. Carry 12 props over overcast an, I wedge up under collars.
 g. Carry brattice cloth over overcas
 and stretch up at place designated. 1 4 Carry dummy over overcast Ol
 stretcher and leave at point found q only one man is training, the foreman |
 charge will put on an apparatus and as sist in carrying dummyD
 5. Carry 250 brick in a gunny sack owe
 overcast and build wall. !.
 s. Take down props and brattice clot and return to point where found '. Crawl through small tunnel twice. Il 8. Alternate pulling weight machines times and walking five laps until tw hours are completed. :. Upon completing tpe training the follSw