Appendix B 



THE BATHYSPHERE OF 1930 

 by Otis Barton 



THE bathysphere is a spherical steel diving chamber, or 

 tank, as we generally call it. It was designed by the writer, 

 and Messrs. Butler and Barret of Cox and Stevens. It con- 

 sists of a single casting made by the Watson-Stillman Hy- 

 draulic Machinery Company. The first casting weighed 

 five tons, which proved to be too heavy for any of the 

 winches procurable in Bermuda. It was therefore junked. 

 Our present tank weighs five thousand pounds, is four 

 feet nine inches in diameter, and has walls at least an inch 

 and a half thick. 



It carries a four hundred pound door, fastened over the 

 man-hole with ten large bolts. This door has a circular 

 metal gasket which fits into a shallow groove. The joint, 

 when packed with a little white lead, was entirely water- 

 proof at twenty-four hundred feet. In the center of the 

 door is a wing-bolt plug, which can be screwed in or out 

 quickly. 



The windows are cylinders of fused quartz eight inches 

 in diameter and three inches thick. They are a special prod- 

 uct of the General Electric Company, the use of fused 



quartz being suggested by Dr. E. E. Free. They are fitted 



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