Divers and Diving

Adam Gowans Whyte

Description

“Divers and Diving” is a vintage book on diving, looking in detail at its history and developments in equipment, technique, and purpose. With detailed descriptions of every aspect of diving as well as interesting accounts of notable historical dives and salvage operations, this volume constitutes a must-have for those with an interest in the history and evolution of diving. Contents include: “Diving in Olden Days”, “What Water Pressure Means”, “The Invention of the Diving Suit”, “Down Goes the Diver”, “Divers at Work”, 'The Dangers of Diving”, “The All-Metal Diving Dress”, “The Diving Bell”, “How Ships are Salved”, “Salving Ships Upside Down”, “Raising an American Submarine”, “The Treasure of the Laurentic”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction.

Sujets

• Timeline of diving technology

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781528766463
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SCIENCE IN ACTION SERIES
General Editor: A. G OWANS W HYTE , B.Sc.
DIVERS AND DIVING
Copyright 2017 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
DIVERS AND DIVING
BY
ADAM GOWANS WHYTE, B.Sc.
AUTHOR OF DEEP SEA SALVAGE ( WITH MR. R. H. HADFIELD ) THE WORLD S WONDER STORIES OUR WORLD AND US ETC.
CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
I.
DIVING IN OLDEN DAYS
II.
WHAT WATER PRESSURE MEANS
III.
THE INVENTION OF THE DIVING SUIT
IV.
DOWN GOES THE DIVER
V.
DIVERS AT WORK
VI.
THE DANGERS OF DIVING
VII.
THE ALL-METAL DIVING DRESS
VIII.
THE DIVING BELL
IX.
HOW SHIPS ARE SALVED
X.
SALVING THE GLADIATOR
XI.
SALVING SHIPS UPSIDE DOWN
XII.
RAISING AN AMERICAN SUBMARINE
XIII.
THE TREASURE OF THE LAURENTIC
XIV.
THE EGYPT S TREASURE AND THE OBSERVATION CHAMBER
XV.
TALES OF SUNKEN TREASURE
XVI.
AN EVERYDAY SALVAGE JOB
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. The Lutine Bell at Lloyd s, which is Rung when news about Ships Missing or Lost is Announced
2. A Pearl Diver Ready to Dive
3. Lethbridge s Engine -One of the Earliest Practicable Diving Suits
4. Diagram of the Human Ear, showing the Eustachian Tube (5) and the Ear Drum (4)
5. Diagram of Water Pressure at Various Depths
6. An Experiment that shows how Water Presses Equally in all Directions
7. Siebe s Open Diving Dress
8. Siebe s First Closed Diving Dress
9. Diver on his Shot Rope Doing Exercises to Get the Nitrogen Out of his Blood
10. The Davis Submerged Decompression Chamber
11. A Port of London Diver Ready to go Down
12. The Diver s Clothes
13. The Outlet Valve
14. A Double-Acting Air Pump for a Diving Boat
15. A Diver under Water, using the Oxy-acetylene Cutter
16. A Picture of Diver Light Blown up while Working on the Salvage of the Laurentic s Gold
17. An All-metal Diving Dress with Jointed Arms and Legs
18. The Siebe, Gorman Observation Chamber Made for the British Admiralty
19. Fleuss s Diving Dress, with Self-contained Breathing Apparatus fastened to the Back
20. Loreno s Diving Bell, Invented in 1531
21. Diagram showing how Water Pressure at Various Depths Compresses the Air in a Diving Bell
22. Halley s Diving Bell (1690), which had a Separate Air Supply under Water Pressure
23. Diving Bell used by the Port of London Authority
24. Skeleton of a Cargo Ship, showing the Bulkheads Separating the Holds and the Machinery Space
25. Lifting a Ship by Means of Wire Ropes Slung from Lighters
26. A Pontoon Used in Lifting Ships
27. Salving the Gladiator
28. Salving the Glatton Upside Down
29. A Picture showing the Laurentic as she Lay Crumpled up on the Sea-bed, with her Decks Close Together
30. The Steel Observation Chamber Used in Salving the Egypt s Gold
31. Salving the Egypt s Gold
32. Diving Bell (1665) used in Attempts to Recover the Tobermory Treasure
33. Patches Made on the Hull of the Merauke
INTRODUCTION
I N Leadenhall Street, London, stands a building known over the world as Lloyd s. There a record is kept of all the ships afloat and there, also, business is done in insuring ships against the risk of damage or loss by fire, collision, or storms.
When news about any ship reaches Lloyd s a bell is rung to call for silence while the news is read out. This bell is the famous Lutine Bell, which belonged to a French frigate wrecked off the coast of Holland in 1799 with a valuable cargo of gold and silver for which, as we shall see later, many hunts were made with little result.

F IG . 1. T HE L UTINE B ELL AT L LOYD S , WHICH IS R UNG WHEN N EWS ABOUT S HIPS M ISSING OR L OST IS A NNOUNCED
The Lutine Bell is sometimes called the Bell of Doom, but it does not really deserve that name. Although its tolling often means that a ship has been lost or damaged, it also brings the good news that a vessel posted as overdue or missing has come safely to port.
Nowadays, as so many ships are fitted with radio, sea news travels fast. When a ship in distress sends out the S.O.S. signal (three dots, three dashes, three dots, in the Morse Code) and gives her position, the nearest ships race to her rescue. Their first duty is to save the lives of the passengers and crew: then comes the job of saving the ship.
She may be so badly damaged, perhaps by fire or collision, that nothing can be done but leave her to sink. If, however, she is able to float, she can be taken in tow and brought to the nearest harbour for repairs.
Sometimes a ship which has sprung a leak is able to crawl along with her pumps throwing the water out as fast as it pours in through the leak. In such cases the captain is lucky if, before the leak gets worse, he can bring his vessel to a smooth shore of sand or mud, where he can-at least in calm weather-beach her in safety.
Although people who live all their lives on land often think that the open sea is more dangerous than the waters nearer home, the sailor knows that he runs most risk when sailing near a coast. There are more ships about, so the chances of collision are greater. Also, in a fog or a blinding snowstorm he loses his bearings and may too easily come to grief, or a fierce gale may blow him out of his course and drive the ship ashore to be battered by the waves or broken on the rocks.
Thus in bad weather a sailor likes plenty of sea room. A chart, or sea map, on which the places where wrecks have taken place are marked with dots, will show far more dots along the edge of the land than anywhere else. Only too often the gallant efforts of lifeboat men are hopeless because the rocks and breakers make it impossible to get near the wrecked ship.
After the work of rescue comes the business of salvage. And it is when salvage is being tried that the diver comes on the scene.
Salvage means saving. In the case of a wrecked ship it may mean saving the whole ship by patching her up and getting her afloat again. Or it may mean saving part of the ship, so that the lost part may be added to make a complete ship. Or, if the ship herself is too badly smashed to be mended or lies in too deep water ever to be raised, it may mean saving her cargo.
In any event nothing can be done without the aid of the diver. It is he who goes down into the water to find out where the ship has been damaged. It is he who has to do all the cutting and patching needed to get the ship afloat again. It is he, too, who, when precious cargo is being salved from a wreck in deep water, plants the explosives that clear the way to the treasure, and guides the grabs that bring it up again.
Many other tasks fall to the diver. He goes down to look at the under-water parts of bridges which are showing signs of giving way. He recovers anchors and other things lost in harbours. He cuts away wire ropes which have got twisted round a ship s screw. He goes into flooded tunnels to find out the cause of the flooding. When a ship is going into dry dock he is on guard, as the water is being pumped out and the ship is slowly coming down, to see that none of the huge wooden blocks on which she will rest have floated away.
Most of these tasks are difficult. Many of them are dangerous and call for great coolness and courage. Even the easiest and safest of them cannot be tackled except after a long and careful training, which makes the diver feel just as much at home at the bottom of the sea as a workman is at his bench.
The following chapters describe how a diver is trained and relate some of his adventures and some of the wonderful feats of salvage he has performed. They also tell how science has made deep-sea diving possible and has helped to overcome some of the perils of the diver s daily work.
DIVERS AND DIVING
C HAPTER I
DIVING IN OLDEN DAYS
I T is a rather surprising fact that a man can hold his breath under water for as long a time as it takes a fast runner to cover a mile. The record time for the one-mile race is 4 minutes 6.7 seconds, and in certain cases divers have stayed under water for more than four minutes without breathing.
Many years ago public displays used to be given by men who trained themselves to spend long minutes in a tank filled with water. One performer, whose record was nearly four and a half minutes, could pick up eighty halfpennies from the bottom of the tank with his mouth before he came to the surface again.
These are, however, special cases. Anyone who tries, when diving in a swimming bath, to keep under water until he reaches the other end will find that the time, short as it is, is quite long enough for comfort. The boys who dive for coins thrown by passengers on ships in harbour at Algiers, Madeira and other places are under the water for only a few seconds at a time. Even the divers who earn their living by picking up sponges and pearl oysters, on the shores of the Mediterranean and of the Indian and Pacific oceans, seldom stay below for more than a minute or so. The stories told about wonderful divers who keep below for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes are only stories.
Diving for pearls or sponges is an old, old trade. For thousands of years until quite recently it was carried on in much the same way. The diver carried a weight to help him to sink, a knife to cut away the sponges and a net or basket to hold them. He also had