72 TI-II3 SEVERN TUNNEL. 



trial ; for the writer's belief is that if ever his heart had 

 failed him, he would not have come out alive. 



He was di-eadf ully disappointed at his failure ; but the 

 conti-actor, having heard of the now apparatus for diving 

 without air pipes, which Fleuss, its inventor, was exhibiting 

 daily at the London Aquarium, invited him to come down 

 with his patent apparatus and close the door. 



Fleuss accordingly came there, and went down, with Lam- 

 bert, to the mouth of the heading ; but when he had groped 

 about and found the sort of place he was expected to go 

 into for nearly a quarter of a mile, his licari failed him, and 

 he came up again. Ho said he would not undertake to go 

 and close the door for ten thousand pounds. Lambert then 

 asked him to lend Jam the dress, and he would go ; but thi.s 

 Meuss refused to do. 



When, however, the contractor pointed out to him that 

 he was standing in his own light, for if Lambert accomplished 

 the job by the help of his paterd', dross it would bo the best 

 advertisement possible for him, Fleuss did consent; so the 

 next day Lambert put on the dress, and closed the door after 

 one failure, which was caused by the mask he had to wear 

 pinching his nose so tightly that it brought on a terrible 

 headache, which made him turn back to have it altered. In 

 this apparatus the breath has to bo taken in through the 

 nose and breathed out tlirough the mouth, therefoi-o the nose 

 has to fit very tightly to the nose pii)o ; and as Lambert's 

 nose was very broad, while Fleuss' was thin, the nose pipe 

 pinched him dreadfully, and he had to get it altered. 



The water was all out, and the work started again by the 

 end of the year 1881, after having been flooded fourteen 

 months. 



Sir John Hawkshaw had, in tlie meantime, recommended 

 that the level of the rails should bo dejjresscd fifteen feet 



