LIFE-SAVING DRESS SUITS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 252, 24 October 1877, Page 4

LIFE-SAVING DRESS SUITS.

Interesting and successful experiments were made at Havre lately with a dress designed by Mr Selingue for saving life at sea. The triala took place in one of the large docks of the town, in the presence of the President of the Chamber of Commerce, the director of the Society for Saving Life and other officials of the city and porf. One of the harbor pilots and a boatman, wearing ordinary clothes and heavy sea boots, put on the life-saving dress and plunged into the basin. It was found that they floated in the water without makiog the slightest movement. In order to show that the dress does not in any way impede freedom of movement, the men next swam for sometime about the dock. When they emerged from the water they were examined by the commission, who satisfied themselves that the men still wore their heavy clothing and boots. The inveutor next proceeded to cut the suit all over, in order to show that a person wearing the life-saving clothes would still float, even though they should bo torn by coming into contact with floating wreckage, &c. Altogether, thirty-cuts nud rents were made in the dress, leaving the body of the wearer in many places exposed to the view. One of the men then divested himself of his clothing, and, plunging into the water, feigned to be drowning. His companion, still wearing the cut and mutilated dress entered the basin, and easily brought the other to the Bhore. So well satisfied were the commission with the results of these experiments that they at once gave the inventor an order for thirty of the life-saving euits, for the use of the crews of the life -boats stationed at Havre. The dress consists of a paletot and trousore, forming a single garment, in order that a man wearing the suit may not be wet by rain or spray, and is rendered insubmergible by being divided into twentyeight compartments, each of which contains a float composed of twenty small cylindrical and articulated floats. The system may be applied to any clothing, since it is not necessary that a garment should be impervious to water in order that it shall be made insubmergible.