Descents in a Diving Bell. ; 325 
Arr. XI.—An account of several descents in a Diving Bell, at 
Portsmouth, N. H.; by the Rev. Timoruy Aupen. 
Communicated by Dr. Mease, with observations. 
Tue curiosity and anxiety of people in Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
shire, were considerably excited, during the autumn of 1805, by an 
adventure, many times repeated, which, in that part of the United 
States, was the first of the kind ever attempted. 
About two years, previously, a gondola, containing nearly twenty 
tons of bar iron, was accidentally sunk in the Piscataqua river, at the 
distance of thirty yards from Simes’s wharf, where, at low water, there 
is a depth of sixty two feet. 
Ebenezer Clifford, Esq. of Exeter, and Captain Richard Tripe, 
of Dover, formed a determination to attempt its recovery, and accord- 
ingly prepared a diving bell, five feet nine inches high, whose di- 
ameter, at the bottom, was five feet, and,* at the top, three, in the 
clear. With the aid of this, it was their intention to get such hold of 
the gondola, as to suspend and bring it ashore. Seats were fixed for 
the accommodation of two men, and the shank of an old anchor, 
across the base of the diving bell, served as a resting place for their 
feet. A competent number of iron weights each 56 lbs. being prop- 
erly secured on the rim of the base, so as to make the whole appara- 
tus amount to nearly two tons, Clifford and Tripe descended to the 
bottom of the Piscataqua, the former six, and the latter ten or twelve 
times. Several others occasionally followed their example and the 
confidence of safety was, at length, so great, that some of the men, 
who assisted the adventurers, preferred going down in the diving bell 
to working at the windlass, by which it was lowered and _ hoisted. 
Two persons usually went together and they were, from sixty to sev- 
enty minutes, under water, twenty of which, at least, were taken up 
in the act of descending and returning. 
The adventurers, several times, brought up a single bar ofiron. In 
sweeping the bottom of the river, they also found a small anchor, of 
which they availed themselves. | 
Twice, with much difficulty, after a number of unsuccessful attempts, 
they made fast to the stem and stern of the gondola, and were on the 
point, as they had reason to suppose, of accomplishing the object of 
their submersion ; but, twice were they frustrated by an unforeseen 
accident. Having made fast to the prize, it was, each time, expedient 
Vou. XXII.—No. 2. ae 
