bathing-machine about it; something of the condemned
cell in Newgate; something of the coal mine; and
something of Robinson Crusoe's hut. It was
about four feet and a half high, four feet broad,
and six feet long. Its walls were of cast-iron,
about three inches thick, and its roof was slightly
concave from the interior, containing six thick
circular bull's-eye windows, about the size of
tea-saucers, which, being covered outside with four
crossed and recrossed bars of thin iron as a
protection from falling stones, presented the
appearance of open-worked tartlets. On one side of
the bell were hanging a heavy pickaxe, a thick
shovel, a crowbar, a hammer, a billhook—all of
solid make—and a bundle of dirty tow that
looked like a doll. On the other side-wall
of the bell was a short length of iron sausage-work,
reminding me very forcibly of Jack Sheppard
in the strongest cell of Newgate, Baron
Trenck in prison, or the lowest dungeon of the
castle keep. This chain, for chain it was, was
carried to be attached to a strong nutted ring in
the roof of the bell, dropping into the water with
a hook at its other end: which hook, when
fastened to the ring at the top of every stone block
that had been lowered by machinery to the
bottom of the sea, would raise or move the stone
by the simple raising or moving of the bell.
This, in substance, was all the heavy work that
was performed with the diving-bell machinery;
the divers going down to attach and detach the
chains—to place the blocks by directing the
motions of the bell through signals given to the
men above—and to dig out and level the foundations
amongst the sea-anemones at the base.

We are let down, almost imperceptibly, by
two men at the windlass machinery. As two
fundamental principles in the management of
diving-bells are, that they shall descend so that
the four sides of their lower edge may touch the
water on a level and simultaneously, and that
the downward journey through the water shall
be gradual and slow, any rapid paying out of
the lowering chains would be instant death to
those in the bell, by filling it with water.
This accident is provided against by a checking
"crab" of complicated structure, but of simple
self-acting operation, which, the moment it is
required, immediately comes into use.

By degrees, the square patch of thick milky
fluid beneath our feet appears to rise towards us,
and we are made aware of the bell having bitten
the sea, by a flopping, sucking noise, and the
swelling up of the water to the narrow plank
across the centre, near the bottom, on which we
rest our seven-league boots. At this moment I
become conscious of the measured beat of the
watchful air-forcing pump, which sounds like
the bumping of a heavy footstep in a moderate-sized
house, two floors overhead; it is
followed by a gentle snorting, like the respirations
of a horse, the struggle of the air through the
valve at the bottom of the conger-eel-looking
tube. This valve is in the centre of the roof of
the diving-bell, and cannot be interfered with by
the men in the cell. If the bumping of the
pump ceases, or the snorting is no longer heard,
it is the duty of the diver to pull the raising
signal, as the supply of life is no longer coming
in, and five or six minutes may exhaust the
existing stock of air.

Our destination is sixty feet below the surface,
or twice the depth of the street seen from the
top of an ordinary house; and very slowly we
proceed to reach it. The thick water below us
is now stationary, and we have no guide by
which to measure our progress except the
different gradations of light. I am first made
aware of the whole bell being under water by
having my attention drawn, by my fellow-merman,
who wears a cap, and looks like Robinson
Crusoe, to a few pinches of sand that are washed
about on the top of the bull's-eye windows.
There is a calm silence, only broken by the
flapping of a chain against the outside of the
bell; the glittering sunlight, toned down as it has
been by the thick glass, immediately changes to
a bright green twilight; and the water casts off
its milky thickness, and looks like green lamp-oil.
This green colour was caused by the yellow
sand still mixing with the blue water, as we
were not far enough out from the land to get
into the deep blue sea. At this moment I felt
a sharp pain shooting through my head, which,
scientifically speaking, was caused by the
pressure of the condensed air in the bell, but which,
popularly explained, to use the words of an old
writer on the subject, was like having a couple
of sharp quills thrust forcibly into each ear.

"Rinse 'em out with a little sea water," said
Robinson Crusoe, who sat opposite to me, and
whose face became more swarthy every foot we
sank; "it did me good when I first went down,
some two year ago."

I followed Robinson Crusoe's advice, paddled
in the water between my legs, and poked my wet
forefingers into my ears; but I cannot recommend
the remedy as a perfect cure.

As we got a few feet lower (we sank about
two feet a minute) the twilight deepened, and
looking upward through the green bull's-eyes
into the sea above us, it reminded me of watching
a large space through a very small window
that was covered with an impenetrable fog.
Robinson Crusoe now began to provide for
contingencies, by hauling in a candle with the
endless chain. When it came at last through
the water at the bottom of the bell—a
messenger of light from above—it was a small
composite dip, that did not seem much injured by
its passage down the tube.

A few feet deeper, and the water
became clearer—more like glass, and less
like green lamp-oil—while the pain in my ears
went off to a great extent, as Robinson
had predicted it would. The twilight in the
bell-chamber deepened, and the water beneath
us became even more clear, until we at length
sighted our promised land—the bottom of the
sea. The water being calm, we had no occasion
to light our candle (a light being a very common
necessity), and we saw the lumps of chalk and
flint lying side by side, like atoms that were
magnified in a large microscope. The sea was