Before a man attempts diving he should be examined by a physician or
medical officer. Men coming under any of the following classifications
should not, under any circumstances, attempt a dive. Men with short
necks, full-blooded, and florid complexions. Men who suffer from
headache, are slightly deaf, or have recently had a running from the
ear. Men who have at any time spat or coughed up blood. Men who have
been subject to palpitation of the heart. Men who are very pale,
whose lips are more blue than red, who are subject to cold hands and
feet, men who have, what is commonly known as, a poor circulation.
Men who have blood-shot eyes and a high color on the cheeks, by the
interlacement of numerous small blood-vessels, which are distinct. Men
who are hard drinkers and have suffered from any severe disease, or who
have had rheumatism or sun-stroke.
The dangers of diving are manifold, and so risky is the calling, that
there are only a few divers in the United States. The cheapest of them
command $10 a day for four or five hours work, and many of them get $50
and $60 for the same term of labor under water.
The greatest danger that besets the diver is not, as would doubtless be
supposed, the monsters of the deep, such as sharks, etc., or of getting
his air-hose entangled or fouled so as to cut off his air supply. It
is the risk he runs every time he dives of rupturing a blood-vessel
by the excessively compressed air he is compelled to breathe. Many
divers have been hauled up dead in the armor from no apparent cause,
when they had been plentifully supplied with air. In each case the
rupture of a blood-vessel in the brain by the air pressure, had caused
a fatal stroke of apoplexy. Divers have also died of fright in the
armor. In one instance a diver at work in the hold of a sunken vessel
got his air-hose so fouled, it was impossible to haul him up. Plenty
of fresh air, however, was supplied to him, but he was held prisoner
five hours, until another diver was procured to go down and free him.
When he was hauled up he was a corpse. Fright had killed him. The diver
is also subject to attacks by sharks, sword-fish, devil-fish and other
voracious monsters of the ocean’s depths. To defend himself against
them, he carries a double-edged knife, as sharp as a razor, which
screws into a watertight brass sheath, but is always ready for instant
use. It is the diver’s sole weapon of defense.
[Illustration: THE SENSATION OF THE FIRST DIVE. AT THE BOTTOM OF
SOUTHERN SEAS. FAIRYLAND BENEATH THE OCEAN. RECOVERING DEAD BODIES--A
GRUESOME FIND.]