Italian School of Divers

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6866, 24 May 1932, Page 3

Italian School of Divers

During tho recent years Italian experts have been much to tho fore in underseas salvage work and one of the factors that has contributed to their success is the fact that Italy has, at Spezia, the biggest school for divers in tho world. The course lasts a year, and students have to undergo a test of two hours’ work at a depth of 125 feet under water, wearing 1651 b. divingsuits, before they aro passed out. Work has often to bo carried out at considerably greater depths than this. "While diving apparatus has oeon perfected during the last century, rudimentary forms of it were used as long ago as tlic time of Alexander the Great. An Englishman, Roger Bacon, is believed to have invented tho origins. diviDg-bell about tho middle of tho thirteenth century. Divers have many perils to face, and instruction in given at the Italian diving-school in the difficult art of fighting sharks and other sea monsters.