LIVING UNDER WATER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 408, 5 July 1881, Page 2

LIVING UNDER WATER.

The new plan for protecting divers and supplying them with fresh air when under i water (which was mentioned in these columns some time back) has been vary satisfactorily tested by the inventor, Mr Fleuss. The arrangement is simple, and consists merely in a vessel containing concentrated oxygen, which the oiver carries, over his shoulder. He breathes or inhales the oxygen, uses it, then returns or exhales it in the shape of impure air, it passes at once through a sponge saturated with caustic, and thus, quite purified, reenters the reservoir- The chief advun-. tage of the process is that the workman below has freer power of movement. He carries the air with him as he moves to aud fro instead of dragging the long air pipe which communicates with the surface. Armed with this apparatus, Mr Fleuss went below water in one of the basins of Portsmouth Dockyard, and re-. maiued down, walking comfortably about, ior a long time. The same system ia. admirably- adapted; for the use of firemen*. or people compelled to enter and work. IT amidst fire, smoke, and deleterious gases. \ Mr Fleuss proved this by bravely facing a large fire of dockyard refuse, which gave off the most pungent fumes. He re-, mained in their midst for upwards of half-an-hour, and emerged perfectly fresh. Asa means of deahngwith poisonous gases J in mines after an explosion, o> in check-/ ing conflagration in a burning house, Mi# Fleuss’ apparatus is likely to be iuvalqfl able, As to its use in diving, the genera^

impression is that it is somewhat too complicated, and that the manipuhi lions of valves, etc., may rather impede the diver S freedom of action. But it is now proved to demonstration that, without all the elaborate machinery of force pumps, etc., people can liye under water for hours ; and the fact is already being utilised by the manufacturers of torpedoes in the of these destructive submarine weapons of war.