Diving Bells and Suits 393 



stored up and from which, thanks to a very ingenious mechanism, 

 it escapes only to meet the needs of the diver at the pressure 

 absolutely necessary at the depth reached. When the reservoir is 

 full, the diver can detach the tube which leads to the pump, and 

 move about freely for a certain time. He can even, for work of 

 short duration, remove the helmet and take in his mouth the tube 

 which comes from the regulator (Fig. 8) . 



To return to the surface, the divers sometimes climb a rope 

 ladder, and sometimes are hoisted on board by means of a rope 

 fastened to the belt. In both cases, they hardly ever take more 

 than one or two minutes to return to normal pressure. 



The diving-suits are now used very frequently in all our sea- 

 ports; but the depths reached are generally rather shallow and do 

 not exceed 20 meters. They are also used considerably in the seas 

 of the Archipelago for sponge-fishing. There, the depths reached 

 are as much as 40 meters; I even have it from M. Denayrouze that 

 divers have reached 48 meters; in that case the total pressure was 

 therefore 5.8 atmospheres. 



According to M. Leroy de Mericourt, divers with suits in the 

 employ of English companies have ventured to the depth of 54 

 meters, the pressure therefore being 6.4 atmospheres. 



It is not with impunity that such pressures have been endured, 

 or to speak more exactly, it is not with impunity that divers have 

 risen from such depths in a few minutes to the surface of the 

 water. Many accidents have been reported, a large number of 

 which have ended in death. Their frequency and their severity 

 are such that the accounts telling us of them seem to scorn and 

 omit whatever does not amount to paralysis or death. However, 

 the financial returns are so great that the use of suits keeps 

 increasing every year. They were introduced only about twelve 

 years ago in the Archipelago, where their appearance caused 

 regular riots in 1866; and in 1867, about a score of machines were 

 operating in sponge-fishing. I have been told that today there are 

 more than three hundred of them,— and that the deaths have risen 

 to about thirty per year! 



The first document which informs us of these strange and 

 dangerous accidents we owe to M. Leroy de Mericourt, 34 and bears 

 the date of 1869. This article is based, the author says, on infor- 

 mation contained in an unpublished memoir of M. Auble, agent 

 of the Society for sponge fishing by means of the Rouquayrol and 

 Denayrouze diving apparatuses: 



During the 1867 cruise, no serious accident occurred among the 

 men who were equipped with this apparatus for fishing. But in the 



