The Wonder Book of Knowledge: The Marvels of Modern Industry and Invention, the Interesting Stories of Common Things, the Mysterious Processes of Nature Simply Explained
History
The Wonder Book of Knowledge: The Marvels of Modern Industry and Invention, the Interesting Stories of Common Things, the Mysterious Processes of Nature Simply Explained
Industrial arts -- History
Another form, known as the Fleuss dress, makes the diver also
independent of exterior aid. The helmet contains a supply of compressed
oxygen, and the exhaled breath is passed through a filter in the
breast-piece which deprives it of its carbonic acid, while the nitrogen
goes back into the helmet to be mixed with the oxygen, the supply of
which is under the diver’s own control, and to be successively breathed.
A diver has remained an hour and a half under thirty-five feet of water
in this suit.
A considerable enlargement of the field of deep-sea diving is the result
of the invention recently of a form of diving apparatus which is
unaffected by the limitations hitherto imposed on work of this kind. A
possible depth of 204 feet is recognized by the British Admiralty
regulations under the conditions that obtain with the common form of
diving suit. Yet this depth has probably never been reached. One hundred
feet is the rare descent of the average diver and 150 feet his maximum.
With the new apparatus a submergence of 212 feet has been obtained, and
this might have been indefinitely extended had there been a greater
depth of water at the place where the experiment took place--Long Island
Sound during the latter part of 1914.
The new diving apparatus is constructed entirely of metal, is rigid and
is made of such materials that it is strong enough to resist the great
pressures found in the depths to which it can penetrate. The material
used is an alloy of aluminum, and the diving case weighs complete about
500 pounds. When in the air, the man inclosed in it is incapable of
imparting movement to it, but in the water, which counterbalances the
dead weight of the apparatus, he can easily move the articulated
sections as well as give himself motion through the water. The
articulated portion consists of about fifty turning joints, fitted with
leather packing, which swells and has an increased effectiveness under
increased water pressure. To prevent the pressure-force of the deep sea
from jamming the joints, roller bearings are so arranged about them that
freedom of action is constantly maintained.
The diving case is not absolutely water-tight, nor is it desired that it
should be so, as the slight leakage acts as a lubricant to the joints,
and aids in their movements. The danger arising from the intake of water
thus into the diving case is averted by the action of an ingenious pump
appliance, which serves two purposes: that of pumping the water out and
pumping the air in. The diver in this invention carries his pump with
him and has air supplied to him at atmospheric pressure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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