Under the Waves: Diving in Deep Waters by R. M. Ballantyne (read book txt) 📖

He pointed, with a grave smile as he spoke, to the outline of a female head which Edgar had been absently tracing on the paper.

“Well, no,” replied the youth, scribbling out the head, “that’s not one of Siebe and Gorman’s appliances, and yet I venture to prophesy that that head will have a good deal to do with the raising of the Seagull! However, don’t let’s waste more time. Here you are. The first method,—that of putting empty casks in the hold so as to give the hull a floating tendency, and then mooring lighters over it and pushing chains under it,—we may dismiss at once, as being suitable only for small vessels; but the second method is worth considering, namely, that of fixing air-bags of india-rubber in the hold, attaching them to the sides, and then inflating them all at the same time by means of a powerful air-pump. We could get your divers to pass chains under her, and, when she began to rise could haul on these chains by means of lighters moored above, and so move the wreck inshore till she grounded. What say you to that?”

Baldwin shook his head. “She’s too big, I fear, for such treatment.”

“Good-sized vessels have been raised by these air-bags of late,” said Edgar. “Let me see: there were the brig Ridesdale, of 170 tons burthen, sunk off Calshot Castle, and Her Majesty’s gun-brig Partridge, 180 tons, and the brig Dauntless, 179 tons, and last, but not least, the Prince Consort, at Aberdeen, an iron paddle-steamer of 607 tons, and the dead weight lifted was 560 tons, including engines and boilers.”

Still Baldwin shook his head, remarking that the Seagull was full 900 tons.

“Well, then,” resumed the young engineer, “here is still another method. We might send down your men to make all the openings,—ports, windows, etcetera—water-tight, fix a shield over the hole she knocked in her bottom on the cliffs, and then, by means of several water-pumps reaching from above the surface to the hold, clear her of water. When sufficiently floated by such means a steam-tug could haul her into port. The iron steamship London was, not long ago, raised and saved at Dundee in that way. She rose four feet after the pumps had been worked only two hours, and while she was being towed into dock the pumps were still kept going. It was a great success—and so may it be in this case. Then, you know, we might construct a pontoon by making a raft to float on a multitude of empty barrels, pass chains under the Seagull and fix them to this pontoon at low water, so that when the tide rose she would rise perforce along with the pontoon and tide, and could be moved inshore till she grounded; then, waiting for low tide, we could taughten the chains again, and repeat the process till we got her ashore. Or, better still, we could hire Siebe and Gorman’s patent pontoon, which, if I mistake not, is much the same thing that I now suggest carried out to perfection.”

“I’m not sure that the pontoon you speak of has been launched yet. I’m afraid it’s only in model,” said Baldwin.

“More’s the pity,” rejoined Edgar, “but I can go to London and ascertain. In any case, I shall have to go to London to make inquiries, and secure the necessary apparatus.”

“Are you sure,” said Baldwin, with a look of great solemnity, “that your going to London has nothing whatever to do with apparatus of that sort?”

He placed a blunt forefinger, as he spoke on the obliterated sketch of the female head.

“Oh you suspicious old fellow!” replied Edgar; “come, you are presuming now.—We will change the subject, and go on deck.”

“Human natur’s the same everywhere,” observed Baldwin, with a quiet laugh as he rose. “Same with me exactly when I was after Susan. For one glance of her black eye I’d have gone straight off to China or Timbuctoo at half-an-hour’s notice. Well, well!—Now, Mister Eddy, don’t you think it would be as well for you to go down and have a look at the wreck? You’ll then be better able to judge as to what’s best to be done, an’ I’ve got a noo dress by the firm of Denayrouze, with a speakin’-apparatus, which’ll fit you. I got it for myself, and we’re much about a size—barrin’ the waist, in which I have the advantage of you as to girth. Their noo pump and lamp, too, will interest you. See, here is the pump.”

As he spoke, the diver pointed to a pump which commended itself at first sight by its extreme simplicity. Whether or not it was better than the more complex, but well-tried, pumps of other makers, our hero was well aware could only be proved by time and experience. Meanwhile he was favourably impressed with it.

The peculiarities of the pump referred to were, first, and most obvious, that it had no outer wooden case or box, and the parts were exceedingly few and simple. It was on the lever principle, the cylinders, instead of the pistons, being movable. The pistons were fixed to a bed-plate and pointed upwards, so that the pump was, as it were, turned upside down, a position which, among other advantages, allowed of the plungers being covered with water, through which the air was forced and partially cooled. Another and important peculiarity was an air-reservoir which received air from the pump direct, and then passed it on to the diver, so that even if the pumps should stop working there would still be a supply of air flowing down to the diver for several minutes. The lamp referred to was also a novelty, inasmuch as it was supplied with air by a separate tube from the reservoir in the same way as if it were a separate human diver. The Henkie and Davis lamp burns, on the other hand, entirely without air, by means of certain acids. That of Siebe and Gorman is an electric-lamp. Both are said to be effective and economical.

Putting on the new dress, our hero was soon ready to descend, with the lamp burning in his hand.

“There are three men down just now,” said Baldwin as he was about to screw on the mouth-piece, “two of ’em bein’ your old friends Maxwell and Rooney Machowl. They’ve been down about three hours, and won’t be up for an hour yet. See that you don’t foul them in your wanderings below. The other man, Jem Hogg—an’ he’s well named—is the laziest chap I ever had to do with. I do believe he sometimes goes to sleep under water!”

“Is that possible?” asked Edgar.

“Possible? Ay, I’ve caught ’em takin’ a snooze before now. Why, I’ve known a man smoke under water. There was one of our fellows once got a comrade to let him keep his pipe in his mouth while he screwed on the front-glass; you see he couldn’t have put it in his mouth after that was fixed; but he was well paid. For a time he smoked away well enough, and the draught of air carried off the smoke through the escape-valve, but an extra strong puff sent a spark out o’ the bowl, which went straight into his eye. He spat out the pipe, and nearly drove in the glasses in his useless efforts to get at his eye, and then he tugged at the lines like fury, and, when we got him on deck he danced about like wildfire, as if he’d been shod with indyrubber instead of bein’ weighted with lead. We thought he had gone mad, and held him fast till we got his helmet off. It cost him a month in hospital before that eye was cured.”

“That being the case, I won’t smoke while below,” said Edgar, laughing; “screw away.”

The glass was fastened, and our hero quickly disappeared under the sea.