3 38 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Courtesy of Miller-Dunn Cutnpanu 

 The diving helmet is extremely simple — a brass 

 hood with a handhold at the top, a plate glass 

 window in front, and lead weights below. Pro 

 fessor Longley found about eighty pounds neces- 

 sary to counteract the buoyancy of the body. 

 This photograph shows Mr. Rex Beach, the au- 

 thor, about to go down in eighteen feet of water 



helmet diving dress invented by Siebe in 

 ]819 (the authorities differ as to the date, 

 some assigning it as the year 1829). This 

 consisted of a metal helmet with metal 

 shoulder plates terminating below in a can- 



vas or leather jacket, under the free edges 

 of which the respired and surplus air es- 

 caped. This in its turn seems only to have 

 been a refinement of the crude apparatus of 

 Kleingert of Breslau, who in 1798 made use 

 of an egg-shaped metal cylinder which was 

 slipped over the head and trunk of the 

 wearer. This, however, was probably a some- 

 what modern development of still earlier 

 diving apparatus. 



The earliest known figure of a submarine 

 diver attired in his suit is probably that con- 

 tained in the 1.511 or 1532 edition of the 

 De Be Militari of Vegetius. This engraving, 

 which I have not been able to locate, is saiil 

 to represent a diver attired in a leather hel- 

 met with a leather tube extending to and 

 supported by a bladder at the surface of the 

 water. Such an ajiparatus at once recalls 

 an elephant swimming wholly submerged but 

 for the tip of his trunk extending above the 

 surface. 



Furnishing a steady supply of air under 

 pressure to the diver seems to have origi- 

 nated with one Borelli in 1679, who attached 

 a simple air compressing pump to such a 

 leather diving helmet as that described above 



All these devices are, of course, but re- 

 finements of the crude diving bells used far 

 back in ancient times, in one of which Alex- 

 ander the Great descended to the bottom of 

 the sea and studied the plants and animals 

 found therein, to be noted as probably the 

 earliest submarine biological observations 

 ever recorded. The earliest account of the 

 use of any sort of diving apparatus is found 

 in Aristotle, who records its use in times dat- 

 ing back to about 1000 B.C. 



Probably the latest and simplest, and by 

 far the cheapest, development of diving ap- 

 paratus for use in shallow water, is that 

 perfected in the diving hood described in 

 this article. So valuable has it been found 

 in submarine biological work at Tortugas 

 that it has been made a part of the perma- 

 nent equipment of the station there. 



