DIVERS FINDING A BOX OF GOLD IN THE PORT OF MARSEILLES.
With the use of this apparatus another advantage is gained. When the diver is down the air he expires rises in bubbles to the surface, and by the regularity with which they rise his condition can be easily known. If they cease, it is known that something must have happened, and that he should be instantly hauled up. In the old diving dress the expired air passed into the space between his body and the clothing and out at a valve in the helmet, but as the excess of air supplied to him escaped in this way also, it could not be told from this whether the diver was alive or dead.
So common has the practice of diving become, that in all countries it is a regular profession. A few instances of the advantages gained by it will prove interesting.
In February, 1867, a collision took place in the port of Marseilles between two steamers, the Ganges and the Imperatrice. The last of these lost one of her wheels, and a box of gold in the officers' quarters fell out and sank in the mud. The exact spot where it fell was not known. The box was black and not very strong. The next day an attempt was made to recover it. A lead was sunk at the supposed spot where the box was lost: and two lines attached to it were knotted at distances of a yard along their length. The two divers having descended, took each of them one of these lines in his hand, and, using the lead as a centre, walked round in gradually increasing circles, searching carefully every foot of their way. After working three hours in this way they found the box, and restored it to the delighted owner.
Another most interesting case is that of the Hussar, an English navy vessel, which was wrecked in Hell Gate, in New York Harbor. On the 23d of November, 1780, during the war of the Revolution, and while New York was in the possession of the English, a British fleet entered the harbor. Among them, as convoys, were the Mercury and the Hussar. The first had on board £384,000, mostly in guineas, and the second £580,000, together amounting to about $4,800,000. This large sum was intended to pay the English troops then in this country. The next day the whole of this money was placed on board the Hussar, and she got ready to proceed to New London, Connecticut, which was then a place for the British rendezvous. Before starting she also took on board seventy prisoners, from the prison hulks in the bay, who were confined with irons on the gun deck below. What it was intended to do with these unhappy prisoners is not known, nor does it appear from the records. However, thus freighted the Hussar hauled from the dock, and under the charge of a negro pilot, who, a few days before, had safely carried a frigate through Hell Gate, started on her way through that dangerous passage. When she was almost through, when open water lay only a few rods before her, she struck, drifted off, commenced to fill rapidly, and while the question of backing her was being discussed, she struck again, and soon settled, and sliding from the rocks, sank in ninety feet of water. The officers and crew escaped, but the seventy prisoners, chained below to the gun deck, sank with the vessel, without an attempt having been made to save them.
The vessel herself was a large one, carrying thirty-two guns, and measuring two hundred and six feet in length by fifty-eight in width. In 1794 an expedition from England came over to New York, and for two seasons attempted in vain to raise the wreck by grappling, when they were forbidden to work any longer by the Government of the United States. In 1819 another attempt was made by an English company, who prosecuted their work with a diving bell. The strength of the current here made their efforts of no avail, and they abandoned the attempt. Since then the possible chance of the four million dollars has tempted various other companies to try, and in turn they each abandoned the attempt in despair of success. Within the past four years, however, a new company has been at work, using the newly-invented submarine armor, and during this time a sloop has been lying, dismantled but firmly anchored, about a hundred yards from the New York side of the East River, three-quarters of a mile above Ward's Island. This is the spot where the Hussar sank, with her prow pointing north.
ARMING THE DIVER.