Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III
Forfatter: Archibald Williams
År: 1945
Serie: Engineering Wonders of the World
Forlag: Thomas Nelson and Sons
Sted: London, Edinburgh, Dublin and New York
Sider: 407
UDK: 600 eng- gl
With 424 Illustrations, Maps, and Diagrams
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314 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD.
DIVER DESCENDING TO WORK UNDER THE WALLS
CATHEDRAL.
It will perhaps surprise many people to learn
that each of the boots which form part of the
diver’s equipment weighs, with its added sole
of thick lead, no less than 20
The Diver s Qn and back
Dress.
are carried two other blocks
of lead, 40 lbs. apiece. The helmet weighs
20 lbs., and altogether the diver bears a
load of nearly 200 lbs. Yet such is the flota-
tion power of water that he can descend a
ladder only by placing his feet, not upon the
rungs, but underneath them, so that the tread
The Diver’s
Work.
■ may help him to pull himselj
down step by step.
The pits which the diver had
to dig were absolutely dark,
owing to the fact that the
water was much discoloured by
the peat. Strangely enough,
no means has yet been devised
for introducing artificial light
when work has to be per-
formed under such trying con-
ditions. The underpinning of
Winchester Cathedral had
therefore to proceed not by
the aid of sight, but solely by
a sense of feeling.
When the diver removed the
peat from each of the 5-feet
beds in which he had to carry-
on his opera-
tions, he de-
posited bags
filled with concrete, which were
lowered from the scaffolding
on the surface, where the air
pump was kept in constant
motion. ' Having been well
trodden down all round, so as
to present a flat surface, the
bags were cut open by the
heavy knife carried by tho
OF WINCHESTER _ _ . .
diver, and another layer oi
concrete bags was then laid
in precisely similar fashion, the foundation in
all consisting of four courses.
The engineer, wearing the diving suit, fre-
quently inspected the work, and had the satis-
faction of knowing that in each pit a bed of
concrete as hard and solid as rock was formed.
Water from the gravel was thus effectually shut
out, and the excavation pumped dry. The
concreting was continued, either in bulk or in
block, until a considerable height had been
attained. Blocks of concrete in some cases,
bricks and cement in others, were next carried