Sir George Head, in his shrewdly humorous _Home Tour_, gives an amusing
picture of a pair of operative divers whom he saw in the Hull docks. Sir
George was passing as the workmen were raising the diving-bell, when he
stepped into the lighter to observe the state of the labourers on their
return from below. He had a remarkably good view of their features, at a
time when they had no reason to expect any one was looking at them; for,
as the bell was raised very slowly, he had an opportunity of seeing
within it, by stooping, the moment its side was above the gunwale of the
lighter. But, Sir George shall relate what he saw:--
"A pair of easy-going, careless fellows, each with a red nightcap on his
head, sat opposite one another, by no means over-heated or exhausted,
and apparently with no other want in the world than that of 'summut to
drink;' they had been under water exactly two hours. I asked them what
were their sensations on going down? They said that, before a man was
used to it, it produced a feeling as if the ears were bursting; that, on
the bell first dipping, they were in the habit of holding their noses;
at the same time of breathing as gently as possible, and that thus they
prevented any disagreeable effect: they added, the air below was hot,
and made a man thirsty;--the latter observation, though in duty bound I
received as a hint, I believe to be true; nevertheless, the service
cannot be formidable, as the extra pay is only one shilling per day. Had
there been any thing extraordinary to see below, I should have asked
permission to go down; but the water was by no means clear, and the
muddy bottom of the docks was not a sufficient recompence for the
disagreeable sensation. Two men descend at a time, and four pump the air
into the bell through the leathern hose; the bell is nearly a square, or
rather an oblong, vessel of cast-iron, with ten bull's-eye lights at the
top, which lights are fortified within by a lattice of strong iron wire,
sufficient to resist an accidental blow of a crowbar, or other
casualty.--Notwithstanding the great improvements made in diving-bells
since their invention, after all precautions, a man in a diving-bell is,
certainly, in a state of awful dependence upon human aid: in case of the
slightest accident to the air-pump, or even a single stitch of the
leathern hose giving way, long before the ponderous vessel could be
raised to the surface, life must be extinct."
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