PEARL DIVERS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 June 1930, Page 2

PEARL DIVERS

risks taken by Japanese. SYDNEY, June 12. Each year pearl shell to the value of £2oO,v)!X) is fished from Australian waters by Japanese divers, and the discovery of new beds in the Gulf of Carpentaria lias added fresh impetus to the industry. In their eagerness to outdo one a<nc : tlier, the Japanese divers,: encased in rubber suits and leaden helmets and boots, daily risk their lives-at depths sometimes more than 40 fathoms, where the pressure is sometimes so great that it bursts tlie suit. Sometimes a diver is hauled to the deck ol ii. lugger'Avitli blood pouring from his ears, nose, and mouth. His eyes are glassy, and bis'lnubs are stricken with paralysis, Helpless, he is again encased in the suit and sent down to the depths- once more in the hope that the pressure will once again, relax his limbs. If it does not, his fate, if not death, is something worse —paralysis for life. But the Japanese are philosophical. They know the risks that they take, and they are prepared to take it in the feverish search for the treasures of the deep. The second death this season was reported to tlie police at Thursday Island, ■ this week, when a lugger brought in the body of

Kanzo Maramoto, who was asphyxiated when his air pipe to tlie lugger, 30 fathoms above where be was operating, became entangled in the propellor and broke. Owing to the enormous pressure of the water there was no time to haul the victim to the suface before his supply of oxygen failed.