The Diving Bell

The Diving Bell, by Francis C. Woodworth

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Title: The Diving Bell Or, Pearls to be Sought for
Author: Francis C. Woodworth
Release Date: August 20, 2005 [EBook #16560]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Illustration]
[Illustration: THE FOX AND THE CRAB.]
UNCLE FRANK'S BOYS' & GIRLS' LIBRARY,
BY
FRANCIS C. WOODWORTH, EDITOR OF WOODWORTH'S YOUTH'S CABINET.
[Illustration]
THE DIVING BELL;
OR,
PEARLS TO BE SOUGHT FOR.
With Tinted Illustrations.
BY UNCLE FRANK,
AUTHOR OF "A PEEP AT OUR NEIGHBORS," "WILLOW LANE STORIES," "THE DIVING BELL," ETC. ETC.
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO. PUBLISHERS.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

CONTENTS.
THE NAME OF MY BOOK 7 THINKING AND LAUGHING 16 THE SCHEMING SPIDER 31 GENIUS IN THE BUD 46 PUTTING ON AIRS 64 "TRY THE OTHER END" 80 THE FOX AND THE CRAB 97 THE GREEDY FLY 101 CAROLINE AND HER KITTEN 104 "I DON'T KNOW" 119 THE LEARNED GEESE 125 THE WRONG WAY 131 THE RIGHT WAY 135 THE OLD GOAT AND HIS PUPIL 140 ON BARKING DOGS 147
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE FOX AND THE CRAB (Frontispiece) VIGNETTE TITLE-PAGE 1 THE SPIDER'S INVITATION 30 THE SPIDER'S TRIUMPH 41 KATE AND HER TUTOR 72 MY PRETTY KITTEN 109 THE LEARNED GEESE 124 THE OLD GOAT AND HIS PUPIL 141

I.
THE NAME OF MY BOOK.
[Illustration]
The reader, perhaps, as he turns over the first pages of this volume, is puzzled, right at the outset, with the meaning of my title, The Diving Bell. It is plain enough to Uncle Frank, and possibly it is to you; but it may not be; so I will tell you what a diving bell is, and then, probably, you can guess the reason why I have given this name to the following pages.
If you will take a common glass tumbler, and plunge it into water, with the mouth downwards, you will find that very little water will rise into the tumbler. You can satisfy yourself better about this matter, if, in the first place, you lay a cork upon the surface of the water, and then put the tumbler over it.
Did you ever try the experiment? Try it now, if you never have done so, and if you have any doubt on the subject.
You might suppose, that the cork would be carried down far below the surface of the water. But it is not so. The upper side of the cork, after you have pressed the tumbler down so low that the upper end of it is even below the surface of the water--the upper side of the cork is not wet at all.
"And what is the reason of this, Uncle Frank?"
I will tell you. There is air in the tumbler, when you plunge it into the water. The air stays in the vessel, so that there is no room for the water.
"Oh, yes, sir; I see how that is. But I see that a little water finds its way into the tumbler, every time I try the experiment. How is that?"
You can press air, the same as you can press wood, or paper, or cloth, so that it will go into a smaller space than it occupied before you pressed it. Did you ever make a pop-gun?
"Oh, yes, sir, a hundred times."
Well, when you send the wad out of the pop-gun, you do it by pressing the air inside the tube. Now if your tumbler was a hundred or a thousand times as large, the air would prevent the water from coming in, just as it does in this instance. Suppose I had dropped a purse full of gold into a very deep river, and it had sunk to the bottom. Suppose I could not get it in any other way but by going down to the bottom after it. I could go down to that depth, and live there for some time, by means of a diving bell made large enough to hold me, precisely in the same way that a bird might go down to the bottom of a tub of water, in a tumbler, and stand there with the water hardly over his feet. There is a good deal of machinery about a diving bell, it is true. But I need not take up much time in describing it. It is necessary for the man to breathe,