ether Mr. Atkinson realized the full truth of his words,
but I found, on consulting the authorities, that a diver's body at
thirty-two feet is subjected to a pressure of water amounting to forty
tons, at sixty-four feet to eighty tons, at ninety-six feet to one
hundred and twenty tons, etc. And it is only the great counter-pressure
in the helmet of air from the air-pump that enables the diver to endure
this otherwise deadly weight. It follows that the deeper a diver goes,
the harder work it is for the air-pump men to drive air down to him; and
at great depths as many as four men are sometimes needed at the pump to
conquer the water resistance and keep open the escape-valve (for air
breathed out) at the helmet-top.

Here ended this day's talk, for the coal would wait no longer; Atkinson
must go down again to his "sweeping". But there were other days for me
aboard the _Dunderberg_--other glimpses into these brave, simple lives.
Think what these fellows do! Here is a huge, helpless vessel at the
bottom of a bay, with the tide tearing her to pieces, and down into the
depths comes a queer little man, as big as one of her anchor-points, and
stands beside her in the mud, and feels her over, and decides how he
will save her; and then does it--does it all alone. And what he does is
never the same as anything he has done before; for each wreck is a new
problem, each job of submarine patching has its own difficulties and
dangers. Oh, bored folk, idle folk, go to the wreckers, say I, if you
want a new sensation; watch the big pontoons put forth their strength,
watch the divers, and (if you can) set the crew of the _Dunderberg_ to
telling stories.

II

A VISIT TO THE BURYING-GROUND OF WRECKS

LITTLE by little, one picks up lore of the divers--small things, yet
edifying. In summer a diver wears underneath his suit, to keep him cool,
the same flannel shirt and thick woolen socks that he wears in winter to
keep him warm. But he wears mittens in winter on his hands, which are
bare in summer. On the bitterest day in January he finds comparative
warmth in deep water, as he finds a chill there in torrid August. Summer
and winter he perspires very freely, and a little work brings him to the
limit of his strength, the strain being chiefly on the lungs. The deeper
he goes the more exhausting becomes every effort.

A diver often endures real suffering (like the foot-tickling torture)
because he cannot scratch his nose or face, and