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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



The writer conjectures that the idea re- 

 sulting in the development and use of this 

 diving hood probably originated in the fol- 

 lowing interesting way. The building of 

 that wonderful over sea railroad, the Flor- 

 ida East Coast Eailway Extension, from 

 Homestead to Key West, called for the erec- 

 tion of miles and miles of concrete viaduct, 

 most of it in relatively shallow water. In 

 this work the services of many divers were 

 in constant demand. The work of such men 

 called for hours of service and for quickness 

 of movement when in the water, as well as 

 for quick ascent to the surface and ready re- 

 moval of the armor, rather than for protec- 

 tion from a great weight of superincumbent 

 water. To meet these exigencies of service, 

 the regular scaphander or diving suit was in 

 the main abandoned, the helmet only being 

 retained. The gain in ease of work while 

 in the water, in quick ascent to the surface, 

 and in ready removal of the helmet when 

 in the boat, at once will be perceived by any 

 one who has watched the snail-like move- 

 ments of an armor-encased diver, his slow 

 ascent to the surface, and the slower process 

 of removal of the helmet. Wearing the hel- 

 met only, a diver, in case of danger or of 

 trouble in the matter of his air supply, 

 needs but to lift off the helmet to be driven 

 to the surface like a shot. I have myself 

 seen a diver, working on the railway docks 

 at Key West, sitting on the bottom in 

 twenty feet of water calmly sawing off piles 

 with a one-man crosscut saw. When tired, 

 or when his work was done, he would climb 

 a ladder to the surface, his helmet would 

 be removed and he would sit down quietly 

 until wanted again. Then in three minutes 

 he would be at his post. 



The use of the helmet alone of a diving 

 suit probably is common in shallow and clear 

 waters the world over, but its use in the 

 United States seems to be restricted to the 

 clear waters of Florida. i 



The use of the scaphander or diving suit 



^ That the use of the helmet alone in diving is 

 not a new thing, and that it did not originate as 

 conjectured, I have ascertained since writing the 

 above. Mr. Ernest Cotton of Marathon, Florida, 

 division engineer of the Florida East Coast Rail- 

 way, Key West Extension, has been in charge of 

 the underwater work of the over sea railway since 

 its inception in 1906. He informs me that al- 

 though in his work very extensive use has been 

 made of the helmet alone of the diving dress, it did 

 not originate with this work, but that Key West 

 divers had made use of it for some years prior to 

 its use on the Extension. His men often have 

 worked in forty-foot water with the helmet only, 



in submarine work dates back to about 1839. 

 Its use in biological work apparently is lim- 

 ited and recent. Its use in the commercial 

 collecting of sponges, however, has attained 

 considerable importance. Virtually all the 

 \essels of the Greek s2)onging fleet having 

 headquarters at Tarpon Springs, Florida, 

 are so equipped. To this the writer can 

 testify from personal observation of such a 

 fleet forced into harbor at Key West by a 

 hard "blow" in June, 1915. 



The use of the diving helmet for sub- 

 marine biological work would seem to have 

 originated at the Tortugas Station in 1915. 

 but such is not the case. In Quatrefage's 

 Bamhles of a Naturalist- may be found the 

 data given below concerning the apparatus 

 used in a search made by Milne-Edwards 

 over the bottom of the Bay of Taormina on 

 the southern coast of Sicily some time be- 

 tween March, 1844, and June, 1845. 



"The apparatus employed by M. Milne- 

 Edwards in these submarine explorations 

 was that which had Ijeen invented by Colonel 

 Paulin, a former Commandant of the Fire 

 Brigade of Paris, to be used in case of fires 

 in cellars. A metallic helmet, provided with 

 a glass visor, encircled the head of the diver, 

 and was fastened round the neck by means 

 of a leather frame supported by a padded 

 collar. This helmet, which was in truth a 

 miniature diving-bell, connnunicated by a 

 flexible tube with the air-pump, which was 

 worked by two of our men, whilst two others 

 stood ready to replace their companions." 



The reader pirobably has come to the con- 

 clusion that this was a unique occurrence, 

 the first of the kind in the history of the 

 world, and, used for the purpose Milne-Ed- 

 wards had in mind, it probably was the first ; 

 but history repeats itself. The full or closed 

 helmet diving dress, essentially in its present 

 form, was practically perfected by an Eng- 

 lishman, bearing the German name of Augus- 

 tus Siebe, in his work on the wreck of the 

 "Eoyal George" about the year 1839. This, 

 however, was but a perfection of the open 



but his understanding is that Key West divers 

 have gone twenty feet deeper without having to 

 put on the full suit. 



Even though this use of the diving helmet did 

 not originate as has been conjectured, there can 

 be no doubt that its use was carried to its present 

 perfection in the submarine work necessitated in 

 the building of the scores of miles of concrete 

 work on this remarkable railroad. 



- The Rambles of a Naturalist on the Coasts of 

 France, Spain and Sicil;/, volume II of which, 

 translated into English by E. C. Otte, was pub- 

 lished in London in 1857. 



