THE EXPERIENCES OF A DIVER. 219 



pected resistance to his progress. He sees things two steps away 

 that he wants to get, and can not reach them. 



Pictures show the diver walking along on the bottom of the 

 sea as he would do on the land ; it is a false representation. One 

 can not get along without bending his whole body at an angle of 

 forty-five degrees in the direction he wishes to go, and then push- 

 ing along on tip-toe in an attitude that would excite laughter in a 

 beholder, assisting himself with his arms as in swimming. If the 

 bottom is uneven, he will do better to creep on his hands and 

 knees. 



On the other hand, one can do things in the water that are 

 impossible in the air let himself drop, for example, from the 

 rocks ; the water will break the fall. Or, he can climb cliffs by 

 letting a little air collect in his coat and planting the ends of his 

 fingers in the cracks and rough places. On broken ground he can 

 pass with a kind of flying leap from one rock to another. But all 

 this supposes a degree of familiarity which is not acquired for a 

 considerable time. In my first efforts I cut my hands terribly, 

 and was not able to use my pen or pencil for several days. I tried 

 a coat made with the sleeves ending in India-rubber gloves, but 

 they prevented my picking up small things, and, moreover, did 

 not last long. I then returned to the common sleeves, closed at 

 the wrist, and used knit woolen gloves. 



Another difficulty is occasioned by the glasses of the casque 

 becoming covered with the vapor that results from the conden- 

 sation of the moisture of the breath. The colder the water, the 

 thicker the vapor is. No means as yet tried to get rid of it have 

 resulted satisfactorily, but I have solved the problem by rubbing 

 the glasses with glycerin. The mist then condenses in a uniform 

 nap which does not obscure the glass. 



When all these difficulties have been surmounted, there is still 

 one that persists that is, the effect and the danger of compression 

 and decompression. That imposes a limit to the depth a man can 

 reach with the diving-dress. Divers are liable to two kinds of 

 accidents. One is a prostration on coming to the surface, for 

 which restorative measures often have to be applied ; and which, 

 according to Paul Bert, results from the effects of the change of 

 medium on the spinal marrow. It is rarely mortal, but may 

 eventually produce a paralysis of the lower limbs. The other 

 accident, graver but very rare, consists of a gaseous embolism 

 of the capillaries of the lung, produced by the disengagement of 

 bubbles of air in the blood, which has dissolved too much of it 

 while under high pressure. The action is like that of Seltzer 

 water at the moment of pressing on the pedal of the siphon. 

 Under its effects, when it occurs, the diver dies as soon as he 

 reaches the surface. 



