A NEW DIVING MACHINE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1228, 9 May 1857, Page 4

A NEW DIVING MACHINE.

[From the New York Tribune."} Major Seers has invented a machine which lie Balls the Nautilus. It is for the purpose of exploring the beds of rivers, laying the foundations I of Urge sea-walls and break-walers, and for othei I submarine purposes. It is so constructed that i’ can be raised to the surface or lowered to the bottom at the will of the operator within. The machine is made of stout boiler iron, and mud resembles a vast tea kettle without spout or handle. Its interior is illuminated through lilt] glass plates in the roof. It is about twelve fee* in diameter, and eight feet deep, and its interim is divided into one large centre apartment for the operators and others, and several smaller chambers for air or water, according to the degree el buoyancy required. A person who descended in 'the machine thus describes its operation:— “ After the inventor had made a descent, a company of gentlemen, detailed by the Navy Department at Washington to inspect the operations oi the Nautilus, descended. After booking on u stone of five tons at the bottom of the cove, the machine returned to the surface with its burden in lour minutes and a-half, blowing and spouting like a veritable sea-monster. Then, by the agency of the cables, which were rove through blocks on the outsi ’e of the machine, and passed through holes in the bottom, the operators within moved it along some twenty or thirty feet through the water, and then descended and deposited the stone on the bottom, occupying altogether, for the operation, from the time of the first descent to the second ascent, but 9 min. and 30 sec. The machine is supplied with compressed air from a large metal reseivoir on a vessel in attendance. This reservoir is kept constantly full by means of a small steam forcing-pump, and connects with the machine by a lube of indiarubber, lined with •coil wire, and cased in Russian duck. Passengers to the realms of Neptune step from the boa’ upon a small iron platform which extends around the top of the machine, and then through a hole in the top, down a ladder into I he interior of the kettle. It is rather oppressive al first. As a dozen persons crowd into the little chamber vague ideas of suffocation will present themselves, and long before the cover is let down you experience a sensation of oppression on the lungs. The cover is • let down and screwed securely. The operator opens a valve and admits the condensed air, which rushes in with a noise like the blowing off ol sieam, and forthwith the tympanums of the ears seem caving in under the pressuie. The sensation may he overccme by making efforts to swallow. By admitting a little water into the side chambers, we descend to the bottom in a second, a distance of 22 feet, without being conscious of the fact. It is almost as light there as in the world above ; and the pressure on the ears having subsided, all begin to feel rather .jolly. A bottle of champagne is produced ; the engineer opens the bottom of the machine, and •steps out upon the sand ; shells are gathered and distributed ; the health of the saline deity is drunk with honours ; the bottom closed again, a little more air, and a good deal of pressure on the ears, and, presto ! we are in the upper world once more. ’