The air which sustains the diver’s life below the surface is pumped from above by a powerful pump, which must be kept constantly at work while the diver is down. A stoppage of the pump a single instant, while the diver is in deep water, would result in his almost instant death from the pressure of the water outside. Only persons of perfect health and physique can pursue the calling of a diver. It would be suicidal for a human being not of perfect health and physique to attempt the feat.
MODERN DIVER’S HELMET.
From a Photograph.
Before a man attempts diving he should be examined by a physician or medical officer. Men coming under any of the following classifications should not, under any circumstances, attempt a dive. Men with short necks, full-blooded, and florid complexions. Men who suffer from headache, are slightly deaf, or have recently had a running from the ear. Men who have at any time spat or coughed up blood. Men who have been subject to palpitation of the heart. Men who are very pale, whose lips are more blue than red, who are subject to cold hands and feet, men who have, what is commonly known as, a poor circulation. Men who have blood-shot eyes and a high color on the cheeks, by the interlacement of numerous small blood-vessels, which are distinct. Men who are hard drinkers and have suffered from any severe disease, or who have had rheumatism or sun-stroke.
The dangers of diving are manifold, and so risky is the calling, that there are only a few divers in the United States. The cheapest of them command $10 a day for four or five hours work, and many of them get $50 and $60 for the same term of labor under water.
The greatest danger that besets the diver is not, as would doubtless be supposed, the monsters of the deep, such as sharks, etc., or of getting his air-hose entangled or fouled so as to cut off his air supply. It is the risk he runs every time he dives of rupturing a blood-vessel by the excessively compressed air he is compelled to breathe. Many divers have been hauled up dead in the armor from no apparent cause, when they had been plentifully supplied with air. In each case the rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain by the air pressure, had caused a fatal stroke of apoplexy. Divers have also died of fright in the armor. In one instance a diver at work in the hold of a sunken vessel got his air-hose so fouled, it was impossible to haul him up. Plenty of fresh air, however, was supplied to him, but he was held prisoner five hours, until another diver was procured to go down and free him. When he was hauled up he was a corpse. Fright had killed him. The diver is also subject to attacks by sharks, sword-fish, devil-fish and other voracious monsters of the ocean’s depths. To defend himself against them, he carries a double-edged knife, as sharp as a razor, which screws into a watertight brass sheath, but is always ready for instant use. It is the diver’s sole weapon of defense.
THE SENSATION OF THE FIRST DIVE. AT THE BOTTOM OF SOUTHERN SEAS. FAIRYLAND BENEATH THE OCEAN. RECOVERING DEAD BODIES—A GRUESOME FIND.