Under the Waves | Page 7

if that be so with one
atmosphere, what must it be with a pressure equal to two, which you
have when you go down to thirty-two feet deep in the sea? An' if you
go down to twenty-five fathoms, or 150 feet, which is often done, what
must the pressure be there?"
"Tightish, no doubt," said Rooney.
"True, lad," continued Joe. "Of course, to counteract this we must force

more air down to you the deeper you go, so that the pressure inside of
you may be a little more than the pressure outside, in order to force the
foul air out of the dress through the escape-valve; and what between the
one an' the other your sensations are peculiar, you may be sure.--But
come, young man, don't be alarmed. We'll not send you down very
deep at first. If some divers go down as deep as twenty-five fathoms,
surely you'll not be frightened to try two and a half."
Whatever Rooney's feelings might have been, the judicious allusion to
the possibility of his being frightened was sufficient to call forth the
emphatic assertion that he was ready to go down two thousand fathoms
if they had ropes long enough and weights heavy enough to sink him!
While the recruit is preparing for his subaqueous experiments, you and
I, reader, will go see what Maxwell is about at the bottom of the sea.
CHAPTER TWO.
DESCRIBES A FIRST VISIT TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.
When the diver received the encouraging pat on the head, as already
related, he descended the ladder to its lowest round. Here, being a few
feet below the surface, the buoyancy of the water relieved him of much
of the oppression caused by the great weights with which he was
loaded. He was in a semi-floating condition, hence the ladder, being no
longer necessary, was made to terminate at that point. He let go his
hold of it and sank gently to the bottom, regulating his pace by a rope
which descended from the foot of the ladder to the mud, on which in a
few seconds his leaden soles softly rested. A continuous stream of
air-bubbles from the safety-valve behind the helmet indicated to those
above that the pumps were doing their duty, and at the same time hid
the diver entirely from their sight.
Meanwhile the two men who acted as signalman and assistant stood
near the head of the ladder, the first holding the life-line, the assistant
the coil of air-tubing. Their duty was to stand by and pay out or haul in
tubing and line according as the diver's movements and necessities
should require. They were to attend also to his signals--some of which

were transmitted by the line and some by the air-tube. These signals
vary among divers. With Baldwin and his party one pull on the life-line
meant "All right;" four pulls, "I'm coming up." One pull on the air-pipe
signified "Sufficient air;" two pulls, "More air." (pump faster.) Four
pulls was an alarm, and signified "Haul me up." The aspect of Rooney
Machowl's face when endeavouring to understand Baldwin's
explanation of these signals was a sight worth seeing!
But to return to our diver. On reaching the bottom, Maxwell took a coil
of small line which hung on his left arm, and attached one end of it to a
stone or sinker which kept taut the ladder-line by which he had
descended. This was his clew to guide him back to the ladder. Not only
is the light under water very dim--varying of course, according to depth,
until total darkness ensues--but a diver's vision is much weakened by
the muddy state of the water at river-mouths and in harbours, so that he
is usually obliged to depend more on feeling than on sight. If he were
to leave the foot of his ladder without the guiding-coil, it would be
difficult if not impossible to find it again, and his only resource would
be to signal "Haul me up," which would be undignified, to say the least
of it! By means of this coil he can wander about at will--within the
limits of his air-tube tether of course,--and be certain to find his way
back to the ladder-foot in the darkest or muddiest water.
Having fastened the line, the diver walked in the direction of the rock
on which he had to operate, dropping gradually the coils of the
guiding-line as he proceeded. His progress was very slow, for water is a
dense medium, and man's form is not well adapted for walking in it--as
every bather knows who has attempted to walk when up to his neck in
it. He soon found the object of his search, and went down on his knees
beside the hole already driven into the