074 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



scends. A bar, tied at each ena with a rope, ending in a hook 

 is hung by the hooks to the rungs, and gives him a seat, leav- 

 ing his hands free. lie may also fill his air-tight suit with 

 air, and thus be partially sustained against the side of the ship. 



During the late civil war the monitor Milwaukee was 

 struck by a concealed torpedo in Mobile harbor and sunk. 

 During the war these torpedos sunk three of the monitors in 

 this harbor, besides several dispatch boats, which met the 

 same fate. The Milwaukee was sunk nearly due east from 

 the city, and during the continuance of hostilities' an effort 

 was made to rescue her armament and her machinery. Her 

 guns cost the Government §30,000 each. A party of divers 

 were engaged, who were chiefly mechanics and engineers, 

 who were exempt from military service in the Confederacy, 

 but who sympathised fully with its cause. The duty was one 

 of singular danger, since it had not only those peculiar to sub- 

 marine diving, but as she lay within range, and hostilities still 

 continued, the divers while below, though safe there from.being 

 hit, were yet in danger of even a worse death, from the injury 

 which might be done to the air-pump above, upon which 

 tjieir supply of air depended, and which was of necessity 

 exposed. 



The work below was also peculiarly arduous. The hulk was 

 crowded with the entangled machinery of sixteen engines, 

 cuddies, posts, spars, levers, hatches, stanchions, floating 

 trunks, boxes, and the confusion worse confounded by the 

 awful, mysterious gloom of the water, which is not night 01 

 darkness, but the absence of any ray of light to touch the 

 optic nerve. The sense of touch is the only reliance, and the 

 life-line is the only guide of the diver. The officers and men 

 of the ship were anxious for the recovery of their baggage, 

 and offeied the divers salvage for its rescue. One of the 



