DEEP-SEA DIVING

Taranaki Daily News, 14 December 1926, Page 7

DEEP-SEA DIVING

HELIUM MAY DOUBLE RANGE. More secrets of the sea may be revealed through a discovery for the use of helium in deep-sea diving. Experiments are being conducted by the Bureau of Mines along lines already followed in laboratory and practical tests, says an American paper. Helium' was used in salvaging ~ the hull of the submarine 851 near Newport, Rl, and during an inspection of the Lakeland, which was sunk several years ago in Lake Michigan. That it will promote safety under water corresponding to or exceeding the safety it provides in dirigible flying has been shown so far, officials of the bureau say. The use of helium, it is said, promises to extend greatly both the time and the depth of divers under-water operation, and thus enlarge the whole range of submarine engineering. It is used in synthetic helium-oxygen atmospheres for “decompression,’ or restoration to normal atmospheric conditions of divers or others who work under increased atmospheric, pressure and in preventing “caisson disease.” The Department of Commerce announced that the Navy Department, the Public Health Service, and the Bureau of Mines were uniting their efforts in the study. “If heliurfi can be made available at comparatively low cost it is considered that the possibilities of using such 5 ■ithetic atmospheres for divers duri. their entire time under pressure are almost unlimited, and that diving hazards will be reduced to a minimum,” a memorandum issued by the department says. • “The advantage of helium is that it is only about half as soluble as nitro.gen, and therefore greatly reduces the amount of excess gas that a man accumulates while under pressure and which must •be given off in decompression. “The possibility is seen of a diver’s spending two hours instead of one on tile bottom, and working at a depth of more than 200 feet instead of 135 or thereabouts. “This,” is was .stated, “would make possible the salvaging of many wrecks which are not now' considered practicable for salvage.”