Before long Atkinson came up again, and announced that everything was ready, holes stopped and suction length in place. Two men helped undress him, while the others set the big eight-inch pipe to pumping out the wreck, and soon it was spurting a thick stream over her side like a fire-tower.
Presently the dinner-bell rang from a tiny cabin below, and I had the honor of breaking bread with the crew of the Dunderberg and two of the company's stanchest divers, Atkinson and Timmans, both small, thin men with wrinkled faces, both the heroes of many adventures. Here was indeed a chance to find out things!
One of my first questions turned upon the effect of diving on a man's hearing. Was it true, as I had read, that divers often have one or both of their ear-drums ruptured by the water-pressure?
Both men thought not; most divers of their acquaintance had good hearing.
"Diving often kills a man straight out," said Timmans; "but, aside from that, I don't think it injures his health. Ain't that right, Bill?"
Atkinson nodded. He had observed that divers almost never take cold or have trouble with their lungs, although they are constantly exposed to all weathers, and often live and sleep in wet clothes for days and nights. As a young man, he himself had been a bookkeeper, in delicate health. People thought he had consumption. So he gave up bookkeeping and, by accident, became a diver. He had never had a sick day since, and he had worn the suit now for twenty-nine years.
"About a man's ears," said he; "there's no doubt you get a pressure in 'em when you go down, and the pressure gets harder and harder the deeper you go, that is, until your ears crack."
"Crack?" said I.
"Well, that's what we call it, but I don't suppose anything really cracks. After you get down, say, thirty feet, your ears hurt a good deal, especially if by chance you have a little cold; and you keep opening your mouth and swallering to make the crack come, and the first thing you know, you hear a sound inside your head like striking a match; that's the crack, and then you can go on down as far as you please, and you won't feel any more pain in your ears until you're coming up again; then you get a reverse crack. They say it's the air working in and out of your head. I don't know what it is, but I know some men's ears won't crack, and those men can't never make divers."
"How deep can a diver go down?" I inquired.