into the interior of the sphere. At a depth of 2^ miles the water 

 would gush in at a speed of 92 ft. per second with a flow of 26 gallons 

 per second. The crew, even if not stunned by the spouting water, 

 would succumb to the pressure in less than seventy seconds. Then the 

 conduits had to be perfectly watertight, above all where we had electric 

 cables, all short circuits having to be absolutely avoided: this was a 

 particular danger because, under pressure, sea water always tends to 

 enter the insulators. 



All these problems were still more complicated by the fact that the 

 number and diameter of the holes going through the wall were limited 

 by considerations concerning the strength of the cabin. We were able 

 to pierce a dozen holes around the porthole, just where the thickness 

 of the wall was 5-9 in.: as is shown in Fig. 3, the diameter of an 

 opening b, beginning at the outer surface of the sphere, was i -97 in. 

 over a length of 1-57 in. and then tapered to a diameter of 0*79 in. as 

 it went inwards, the junction of the two diameters being effected by a 

 conical piece. For each of the diflferent openings a separate piece of 

 construction with laboratory tests, with a model, was necessary. 



Complementary technical details are given at the end of this book. 



This new design of the openings allowed us to bring directly into 

 the cabin itself the large pyrotenax cables, with an external diameter 

 of 0-63 in. of which the core had a diameter of 0-45 in. carrying the 

 heaviest currents. Thus we were able to do without the relays which, 

 placed outside the cabin in containers filled with oil, caused certain 

 difficulties in the FNRS 2 and FNRS 3, 



[91I 



