f the olden time, but no great advance in its
improvement was made until the end of the eighteenth and beginning of
the present centuries, when the names of Rowe, Halley, Spalding,
Bushwell, and Colt, appear in connection with various clever
contrivances to facilitate diving operations. Benjamin Martin, a London
optician, made a dress of strong leather in 1778 which fitted his arms
and legs as well as his trunk, and held half a hogshead of air. With
this he could enter the hold of a sunk vessel, and he is said to have
been very successful in the use of it. Mr Kleingert of Breslau, in
1798, designed a dress somewhat like the above, part of which, however,
was made of tin-plate. The diving-dress was greatly improved by Mr
Deane, and in the recovery of guns, etcetera, from the wreck of the
_Royal George_, in 1834 to 1836, as well as in many other operations,
this dress--much improved, and made by Mr Siebe, under Deane's
directions--did signal service.

It has now been brought to a high state of perfection by the well-known
submarine engineers Siebe and Gorman, Heinke and Davis, and others, of
London, and Denayrouze of Paris. It encases the diver completely from
head to foot, is perfectly water-tight, and is made of thick sheet
india-rubber covered on both sides with tanned twill--the helmet and
breast-plate being metal.

For further information on this subject we refer the inquisitive reader
to the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, to the descriptive pamphlets of the
submarine engineers above named, and to an admirable little book styled
_The Conquest of the Sea_, by Henry Siebe, which contains a full and
graphic account in detail of almost everything connected with diving and
submarine engineering. [See Note 1.]

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Note 1. It may interest practical spirits to know that they can _see_
the diving-dress and apparatus in operation, by going to Number 17 Mason
Street, Westminster Bridge Road, London, where Messrs. Siebe and Gorman
have erected a large Tank for the purpose of illustrating their
apparatus. At the Alexandra Palace, also, Messrs. Denayrouze and
Company have a tank for the same purpose.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE GRINDING OF THE SCREW.

It is proverbial that incidents in themselves trivial frequently form
the hinges on which great events turn. When Edgar Berrington went to
London he learned that the owners of the fine ocean-steamer the