DAVY JONES’S LOCKER, AND THOSE WHO DIVE INTO IT.
Scientific Diving—General Principles—William Phipps and the
Treasure Ship—Founder of the House of Mulgrave—Halley’s Wooden
Diving‐bell and Air Barrels—Smeaton’s Improvements—Spalding’s
Death—Operations at Plymouth Breakwater—The Diver’s Life—“Lower
away!”—The Diving‐_Belle_ and her Letter from Below—Operations at
the Bottom—Brunel and the Thames Tunnel—The Diving
Dress—Suffocation—Remarkable Case of Salvage—The “Submarine
Hydrostat”—John Gann of Whitstable—Dollar Row—Various
Anecdotes—Combat at the Bottom of the Sea—A Mermaid Story—Run down
by the _Queen of Scotland_.
The art of unassisted diving having been considered, the reader’s
attention is invited to divers and diving aided by scientific appliances.
But for these developments, how could one hope to recover anything large
or valuable that had once disappeared beneath the waves? How properly
build gigantic breakwaters, piers, and bridges, or examine and clear
choked ports and channels?(29) Some of the grandest achievements of modern
practical science would have been impossible without their aid.
Every reader understands the general principle involved in the
construction of the diving‐bell. Invert a tumbler in a deep vessel of
water, and the liquid will only ascend to a certain height inside, however
far down you place the glass. Insert a tube in a hole drilled in your
tumbler, and blow downwards, and the water recedes still lower. This is
what happens when the air is pumped down into the modern diving‐bell. In
descending in a diving‐bell and remaining under water you will feel a
slight inconvenience in breathing, and perhaps a tingling in the ears;
this comes, not from scarcity of air, but from the fact that the
atmosphere of the interior of the bell is really _denser_ than it is
outside; the air, forced downwards by the powerful air‐pump, is pressed
_upwards_ by the water. Readers may remember that Robert Fulton and his
friends remained under water in his submarine boat for over two hours, the
air in that case being supplied from a large globe containing highly
condensed air, which was allowed to escape as required. The foul air
passed off from tubes in bubbles to the surface.
[Illustration: A DIVER AT WORK (WITH SUBMARINE LAMP).]
As early as the year 1663 an Englishman named William Phipps, the son of a
blacksmith, invented a plan for recovering from the bottom of the sea the
treasures out of a Spanish vessel which had sunk on the coast of
Hispaniola. Charles II. lent him a ship and all that was necessary for his
enterprise, but the matter did not turn out successfully, and William
Phipps fell into a state of the greatest poverty. Notwithstanding this
nothing could discourage his ardour, and to set himself afloat again he
opened a subscription list in England, of which the Duke of Albemarle was
one of the subscribers. In 1667 Phipps embarked in a ship of 200 tons
burden, having undertaken beforehand to divide the profits between the
twenty shareholders who represented the associated capital. At first
starting his search proved altogether unavailing, and he was just
beginning to despair, when he fell in with the golden vein. The fortunate
diver returned to England with £200,000; £20,000 he kept for himself, and
no less than £90,000 came to the share of the Duke of Albemarle. Phipps
was knighted by the king, and became the founder of the noble house of
Mulgrave, which has played no inconsiderable part in the affairs of the
United Kingdom.
It is little more than a century and a half ago since the celebrated
astronomer, Halley—about the first to commence those experiments in
submarine exploration which have been continued to the present
epoch—descended to a depth of fifty feet in a diving‐bell which he had
constructed. It was built of wood, and covered with sheet lead. The air
that was vitiated by respiration escaped from the chamber through an air‐
cock, while the pure element was supplied by barrels, which descended and
ascended alternately on both sides of the bell, like buckets in a well.
These barrels, lined with metal, each contained some thirty‐six gallons of
condensed air; they were connected with the interior of the bell by
leathern tubes. As soon as one of these air receptacles was exhausted
another was let down. Halley himself relates that in 1721, by the aid of
this apparatus, he was able to descend with four other persons to a depth
of nine or ten fathoms, and to remain under water an hour and a half.
It is to Smeaton, the celebrated engineer of the famed Eddystone
Lighthouse, that the diving‐bell owes its leading characteristics, as he
was the first to abolish Halley’s rather clumsy contrivance and apply the
power of the air‐pump; he also constructed the first cast‐iron bell. In
1779 he made use of the diving‐bell to repair the piles of Hexham Bridge,
in the north of England, the foundations of the structure having been
undermined by the violence of the current. A few years after a sad
accident occurred from the use of Halley’s barrel apparatus.
In 1783, Mr. Spalding, of Edinburgh, who had made some improvements upon
the mechanical arrangements of Halley’s bell, but had retained the barrel
air service, engaged to recover some of the cargo of an East‐Indiaman
which had been sunk on the Kish Bank, Ireland. He and his assistant went
down, and after the first supply of air was exhausted the barrels were
sent down as usual. No signal having been given for some time, the bell
was drawn up, and Mr. Spalding and his assistant were found to be dead. It
is supposed that by some means they failed to discharge the air from the
barrels into the bell, and were consequently suffocated. The barrel
service was always more or less dangerous, from its liability to get out
of gear, and if Spalding had adopted the invention of Smeaton, he would
not have lost his life in the manner he did.
The improved diving‐bell was soon generally adopted by engineers, and
played an important part in the works which have so altered the port of
Ramsgate. The great engineer Rennie made constant use of the diving‐bell
in fixing the foundations of the eastern jetty, and in protecting it in
parts against the attacks of the sea by a shield of solid masonry. It was
extensively used in the construction of the Plymouth Breakwater. M.
Esquiros, who visited the divers during the progress of that great work,
gave an interesting account of their _modus operandi_:—
“But we now,” says he, “approached the breakwater—that causeway of
giants—by the side of which we soon discovered an old dismasted ship. This
vessel is rough in appearance, and covered over with a kind of pent‐house
roof. In it live, as in a floating house, the operatives who are still
working at the breakwater. They pass, alternately, one month on board ship
and one month on shore. One of their little sources of profit consists in
the sale of small fancy articles, which they say that they cut out with
the blades of their pocket‐knives from the rocks which they bring up from
the bottom of the sea. Very soon I heard the loud throbbing of machinery,
snorting and puffing like so many marine monsters; it was the wheezy noise
of the air‐pumps which supply the bells when buried under water....
“I then noticed a small boat managed by a sailor rowing it, which glided
under the mouth of the bell, and from this hollow I saw emerge a pair of
large loose boots, reaching above the knees, which, being followed by
another pair of large boots, convinced me that two men were jumping down
into the skiff. The boat itself, in fact, at once got clear of the dome,
under which it had been half hidden, and I saw it come back to the vessel
with two workmen on board, wet up to the waist and covered with mud. They
had just finished making their half‐day under the water, and appeared to
be fatigued. Their swarthy complexions were tinged on the cheeks and
forehead with a bright sanguine hue. The position of the bell was not at
all altered; it was as if they wished to give it an opportunity to dry
itself and breathe a little fresh air. It was then dinner hour for the men
employed at the works. I had just been a spectator of the process of
raising the bell to the surface; I now had to see it let down again to the
bottom of the sea.
“The same little boat which brought the two workmen to the great floating
house took them back again, after an hour’s rest, to the vicinity of the
diving‐bell, which, hung just over the water, looked very much like an
immense iron box open at the bottom. The procedure in making ready for the
descent has really something rather imposing about it, and to an excited
imagination might very well suggest the preparations for the execution of
a sentence of death. Nothing is wanting for the purpose; the scaffold, the
secret cell, and the gulf of the menacing waves are all there. The divers,
thank goodness! do not in the least anticipate such a fate, but, on the
contrary, seem proud to walk safely over the bottom of the sea, where so
many others have found their grave. Be this as it may, the boat soon
places itself underneath the bell, raised as it is three or four feet
above the surface. The two workmen climb one after the other up into the
inside, helped by an iron ring hung to the arched roof, which can easily
be laid hold of by the hands. They take their places on two wooden benches
fixed at a certain height in the hollow of the bell. Sometimes four, or
even six, workmen have to find seats in this curious vehicle. When all
this is done the boat goes away, and in another moment the voice of the
foreman gives the order, ‘Lower away.’...
“In places where the water is troubled by sand, the diver often passes
through a kind of twilight or submarine fog, which compels him to light
his lamp. More often, on the contrary, the light is sufficiently strong to
enable him to read a newspaper in small type. A story is told even of a
lady who wrote a letter in the diving‐bell, and dated it thus: ‘16th June,
18—, at the bottom of the sea.’ Her courage obtained for her among the
divers the _sobriquet_ of the Diving _Belle_.
“I also wished to make my mind easy as to the lot of the poor workmen whom
I had seen descending in the bell. The foreman assured me that they
enjoyed every comfort in it. Have they not seats to rest themselves on, a
wooden ledge on which to place their feet, an assortment of tools and
necessary utensils suspended on a cord or hooked on to the walls of their
hut, which is nearly as well furnished as that of Robinson Crusoe’s? From
all this explanation I was bound to conclude, unless the foreman was
mixing up a little irony in what he told me, that the divers were quite
‘at home’ in the bell. The fact is, that really they pass in it a great
part of their existence. Almost all of them suffer a great deal at first
from a violent pain, which they themselves define as ‘a toothache gone
into the ears,’ and they have a humming in the head, ‘as if some one had
let fly a swarm of bees there;’ but these troublesome symptoms disappear
after the second or third descent. Their confidence in this dry chamber,
almost isolated in the midst of the turmoil of the ocean, approaches
sometimes to temerity. In 1820, Dr. Collodon, of Geneva, who had gone down
in a diving‐bell on the coast of Ireland, bethought himself that at the
depth at which he then was, a stone, or any other trifling cause
obstructing the action of the air‐valve, would be sufficient to enable the
water to invade the bell. He confided this not very reassuring reflection
to one of the divers who was with him. The latter, smiling, answered him
by merely pointing out with his finger one of the glazed loopholes which
were over their heads. The doctor examined it attentively, and
ascertained, in fact, that the glass was cracked sufficiently to allow
bubbles of air to escape pretty freely. This was a very different and more
serious cause of uneasiness than the rather improbable contingency of an
obstruction of the air‐valve. The diver was well aware of the cracked
glass, and cared nothing about it.”
Some time since, when the present writer descended in the diving‐bell
exhibited in London, a seal which then disported in the tank would rub its
nose outside against the little glass windows, and look in, as though
wondering what on earth a visitor was doing there in _his_ element! The
same poor animal afterwards came to grief in a very sad way. When the
water was drained off out of the tank the seal got into the pipes below,
and thence to the sewers. It was found, still alive, some time after, in
the sewers of the Euston Road, a considerable distance away, but succumbed
later to the mephitic influences of the filthy stream.
M. Esquiros continues:—“‘They are just beginning to work’ was soon
remarked to me by the superintendent, who followed, even under the waves,
every movement of his labourers. The nature of their operations varies, of
course, very much according to the undertaking in which they are engaged.
The two divers who had just gone down had for their task to clear away
round the adjacent portion of the foundation of the breakwater. As soon as
they reach the bottom they jump off their seat, and, armed with a pickaxe,
begin to dig into the moist sand in order to get out the stones. It often
happens that the movement of the tide or some other cause disturbs the
water round the rocky base of the breakwater. The workmen have then much
trouble in seeing clearly, and complain that ‘the water is muddy.’
Generally, however, the water is so transparent, that even a cloud passing
across the sky is visible at the bottom of the sea. The workmen also can
labour with nearly as much ease and quite as much energy as if they were
on land. The movements they themselves make in conjunction with the
circumstances which surround them occasionally cause something like a
thick mist to rise before their eyes, hiding from them the nearest
objects; they get quit of it by calling for an ‘air bath.’ The air‐pump
redoubles its pace in working, and sends down to them through the pump an
extra current of air, which soon blows away the mist.
“I was very soon enabled to judge for myself as to their industry; sacks
which they had filled with muddy sand, and buckets laden with stones, came
up to the surface every moment, drawn by cords. One might have fancied it
to be the mouth of a mine, to which invisible arms were constantly sending
up fragments of rock; but here the mine was the sea. The nature of their
digging did not allow them to work very long together in the same place.
The divers had already requested by signal to have their position shifted
on the bed of the sound. How would they manage to comply with their wish?
As regards air and locomotion, the men shut up in the bell depend entirely
on the apparatus working on the surface. The chief organ of movement is a
sort of _traveller_ on four wheels, running over two tramways, allowing it
to come and go in every direction. Immediately on the signal being given
from below, the bell was raised from the bottom of the sea, like a heavy
balloon. This operation was, of course, carried out by means of chains,
and the diving‐bell remained for a minute or two motionless in mid‐water,
like the pendulum of a stopped clock. But the traveller begins to move,
and as it also acts as a crane, the pulley on the surface and the bell
under water shift their position at the same time. The divers call this
‘travelling.’ They can thus move from north to south, from east to west,
backwards and forwards. As they are in motion, if they come upon a piece
of rock which encumbers the bed of the sound, they give the signal to
stop, and the bell becomes stationary, and then descends again slowly
towards the block of stones. If they have been carried on a little too
far, and want to retrace their steps, they communicate afresh with the men
working on the surface, and the obliging machinery soon brings them to the
exact point desired.”
The diving‐bell has many times rendered service to engineers, by enabling
them to descend and ascertain the nature of damages going on, which might
otherwise have ruined their work. When Brunel was building the famous
Thames Tunnel, and the current had broken through its arched roof, he went
down in a diving‐bell to see for himself the extent of the disaster. After
a descent of nearly thirty feet, he reached a serious opening in the
masonry, but the hole was too narrow to allow the bell to enter. It was
therefore necessary for some one to dive into it, and brave Brunel
immediately declared his intention of doing it. Taking hold of the end of
a rope, he plunged into the hole, where it is said he remained nearly two
minutes, mentally noting the damage done. So intent was he on this
examination that he let go the rope just as his companions above, alarmed
at his long stay below, were hauling it up. He had just time to catch hold
of it again, and was happily drawn safely into the bell.
[Illustration: DIVERS ATTACKED BY A SWORD‐FISH.]
The diving dress was a later development, and owed much of its present
practical shape to French men of science. The object of the dress, which
is of canvas or india‐rubber and metal, is, of course, to give each
individual wearing it the utmost liberty of motion, while having at the
same time a proper supply of vital air. The condensed air‐reservoir is
made of steel, and capable of resisting great pressures. The diver carries
this apparatus on his back; from it a respiratory tube issues, and is
terminated by an india‐rubber mouth‐piece, which is held between the lips
and teeth of the diver.
The diver’s is a rough life, most assuredly. During the diving business on
the _Royal George_, Private John Williams, early in the season, tore his
hands very severely in attempting to sling a mass of the wreck with jagged
surfaces and broken bolts. After a few days’ rest he reappeared in his
submarine habit, and dived as before, but from excessive pain in the ears
was again _hors de combat_ till the 11th of July, when, on re‐descending,
he was grievously injured by the bursting of his air‐pipe a few inches
above the water. This casualty was indicated by a loud hissing noise on
deck. A few seconds elapsed before the rupture could be traced and the
opening temporarily stopped. With great alertness he was drawn up, and on
being relieved of his helmet, presented a frightful appearance. His face
and neck were much swelled and very livid, blood was flowing profusely
from his mouth and ears, and his eyes were closed and protruding. Though
partially suffocated, he possessed sufficient sensibility to speak of the
mishap. A sudden shock, it seems, struck him motionless, and then followed
a tremendous pressure, as if he were being crushed to death. A month in
the Haslar Hospital restored him to health, and on returning to the wreck
he at once recommenced his laborious occupation.
[Illustration: DIVERS AT WORK.]
The following is a remarkable example of a salvage effected by the help of
divers. “The packet boats _Ganges_ and _l’Impératrice_ came into collision
in the outer port of Marseilles. The _Impératrice_ had one of her wheels
broken and the officers’ quarters damaged. One of the cabins contained a
chest full of gold, which fell into the thick mud which forms the bottom
of the port of Marseilles. It was important that this precious package
should be recovered the next day. The sea was rough, and the exact spot
where the accident occurred unknown. The box was not strong; its colour
was black. At the supposed spot a plumb of sixty kilogrammes was sunk.
This plumb carried two cords divided into metres; two divers dragged them
in separate directions, and taking each the knot corresponding to one
metre, they described consecutive circles, examining the ground at each
step. After searching three hours, the gold was found, and restored to its
owner, who had watched the operations with intense anxiety. This salvage
was effected on February 19th, 1867, by M. Barbotin, contractor for
submarine work at Marseilles.”
The diving‐bell proper has been much improved by another Frenchman, M.
Payerne. His “Submarine Hydrostat” will descend or fall at the will of
those inside. Thirty men may work in it with ease for a number of hours
without inconvenience. It is, therefore, of great service in clearing
ports, and in facilitating the execution of other submarine work. “The
principle of the machine is very ingenious. Externally, it has the
appearance of one large rectangular box, surmounted by another smaller
one, completely closed in except at the bottom. The interior consists of
three principal compartments. The _hold_ communicates by a large shaft
with the upper compartment. Between these is a third compartment, or
_orlop deck_, which only communicates with the others by means of stop‐
cocks. The hydrostat is twenty feet in height, and its base, which has the
bottom of the sea for a floor, covers an area of 625 square feet. It may
be made to rise and fall at will, and it will readily float about like a
raft.” This ingenious machine has proved of much service. The port of
Fécamp was choked up with shingle, which closed it against all vessels
beyond a certain tonnage. The hydrostat was employed, and the port
cleaned, and again opened to commerce.
The old divers are fond of recounting the glories of their craft, and are
specially impressed with any information as to the fate of the vessels of
the Armada. This spirit has been fostered no less by the successes of the
ancestor of the Mulgraves than by the good fortune of John Gann, of
Whitstable. The old diver was, many years since, employed on the Galway
coast, and used to pass his evenings in a public‐house frequented by
fishermen. One of these men, repeating a tradition which had long existed
in the district, told Gann that one of the Spanish vessels had been
wrecked not far from that coast, and intimated that he himself could point
out the spot. Gann, having finished his special job, made terms with the
fisherman, and they were both out for many weeks dragging the spot
indicated for any traces of the wreck. They were at last rewarded by
coming upon obstructions with their grapnels. Gann brought out his diving
apparatus, and sure enough the truth of the tradition was vindicated by
the finding of a number of dollars, which had originally been packed in
barrels. The barrels, however, had rotted away, and left the gold stacked
in barrel shape. With the money so recovered John Gann built at
Whitstable, his native place, a row of houses, which, to commemorate the
circumstance, he called Dollar Row.
Corporal Harris, almost entirely by his own diligence, removed in little
more than two months the wreck of the _Perdita_, mooring lighter, which
was sunk in 1783, in the course of Mr. Tracy’s unsuccessful efforts to
weigh the _Royal George_. It was about sixty feet in length, and embedded
in mud fifty fathoms south of that vessel. The exposed timbers stood only
two feet six inches above the level of the bottom, so that the exertions
of Harris in removing the wreck were Herculean. Completely overpowered by
fatigue, he claimed a respite for a day or two to recruit his energies,
and then resumed work with his accustomed assiduity and cheerfulness.
There was a sort of abnegation, an absence of jealousy, in the character
of Harris which, as the rivalry among the divers made them somewhat
selfish, gave prominence to his kindness. He met a comrade named Cameron
at the bottom, who led him to the spot where he was working. For a
considerable time Cameron had fruitlessly laboured in slinging an awkward
timber of some magnitude, when Harris readily stood in his place, and in a
few minutes, using Cameron’s breast‐line to make the necessary signals,
sent the mass on deck. It was thus recorded to Cameron’s credit; but the
circumstance, on becoming known, was regarded with so much satisfaction
that honourable mention was made of it in the official records.
Lance‐Corporal Jones, engaged on the wreck of the _Royal George_, one day
lodged on deck from his slings a crate containing eighty 12‐pounder shot.
With singular success he laid the remainder of the kelson open for
recovery, and then, sinking deeper, drew from the mud, in two hauls,
nearly thirty‐five feet of the keel. He also weighed a small vessel of six
tons burden, belonging to a Mr. Cussell, which drove, under a strong
current, upon one of the lighters. Becoming entangled, the craft soon
filled and foundered, grappling, in her descent, with the ladder of one of
the divers, grounding at a short distance from the interval between the
lighters. Jones was selected to try his skill in rescuing her. At once
descending, he fixed the chains under her stern, and while attempting to
hold them in position, by passing them round the mast, the tide turned,
the vessel swung round, and the mast fell over the side, burying Jones
under her sails and rigging. Perilous as was his situation, his
fearlessness and presence of mind never for a moment forsook him. Working
from under the canvas, and carefully extricating himself from the crowd of
ropes that ensnared him, he at last found himself free. A thunderstorm now
set in, and, obedient to a call from above, he repaired to the deck; but
as soon as the squall had subsided he again disappeared, and cleverly
jamming the slings, the boat was hove up; but she had become a complete
wreck, and was taken on shore.
A dangerous but curious incident occurred on the _Royal George_ diving
operations between Corporal Jones and Private Girvan, two rival divers,
who, in a moment of irritation, engaged in a conflict at the bottom of the
sea, having both got hold of the same floor timber of the wreck, which
neither would yield to the other. Jones, at length, fearful of a collision
with Girvan, who was a powerful man, got his bull‐rope fast, and attempted
to escape by it, but before he could do so Girvan seized him by the legs
and tried to draw him down. A scuffle ensued, and Jones succeeded in
extricating himself from the grasp of his antagonist. He then took a
firmer hold of the bull‐rope and gave a kick at Girvan, which broke one of
the lens of Girvan’s helmet, and as water instantly rushed into his dress,
he was likely to have been drowned, had he not at once been hauled on
board. Two or three days, however, at Haslar Hospital restored him; and
the two submarine combatants resumed work together with the greatest
cordiality.
A diver’s “Nursery Tale” must not be omitted. The hero, “Jack” (this is
the name of a diver who “lived once upon a time”), had been busy for some
weeks in gathering up the relics of a shipwreck, when on a certain day he
saw appear at one of the windows of his bell the pale face of a woman,
with long hair intertwined with sea‐weed. He had often heard tell of the
beauty of mermaids, who are, as every one knows, lovelier than the most
lovely of women; but Jack never believed that any creature so perfect as
this could have existed. With a voice softer than the murmuring of the
waves under a gentle breeze, she said to him, “I am one of the spirits of
the sea. On account of your kind disposition I have marked you out among
the rest of your companions, and I will protect you, but on one condition
only, and that is, that you shall be sure to recognise me under any shape
into which I may be pleased to change myself.” The beautiful spirit
disappeared, and Jack remained very much surprised, but with a strong
feeling of joy thrilling within him. He prospered exceedingly in all that
he undertook. But at last prosperity spoiled him. He kicked and ill‐
treated a polyp, a kind of devil‐fish, but still an animal, and one that
had done him no harm, not knowing that the beautiful spirit was disguised
under that mass of ugliness. A few days afterwards an accident occurred
and Jack was drowned. Moral: Take the advice of kindly mermaids—when you
meet them.
And now for our last yarn, a true one. Some years ago a large vessel,
having on board a valuable cargo, including gold bars, was run down and
sunk by a steamship in the Thames between Northfleet and Gravesend. She
was afterwards successfully raised by Captain George Wilson, of Milton,
the famous oyster place, near Sittingbourne, in Kent, and which is also
famous for its divers. It is principally, however, to the names of the
vessels concerned that attention is directed. The _United Kingdom_ was run
down by the _Queen of Scotland_!