Compressed Air Work And Diving 1909

THE FLEUSS APPARATUS. 29 is complicated and therefore likely to get out of order ; that it is very much in the diver’s way, and might easily get caught in something ; and that the pressure gauge will give no indication to the attendant of the diver’s depth. In its favour is the faet that the cliver when stooping clown runs no risk of being “ blown ” to the surface. As against this he will be breathing against pressure, as the diaphragm will be above the diver’s head, and the effeet producecl will be the same as that obtaineel by Dr Haldane in his experiment described in the last chapter, when the escape valve at the end of the rubber tube was held too high up. A sudden fail woulcl also be less dangerous, although if this were for any distance, the reservoir is so small that the air woulcl soon be exhaustecl, unless it were kept at an excess pressure much above that requireel by the cliver. This coulcl be done with shallow diving, but to do so with deep diving woulcl be quite impracticable. On the whole the air reservoir appears a very useless encumbrance, and so far .has not come into use in this country. Another system is the Fleuss apparatus. With this apparatus the life line and air pipe are dispensed with, and the cliver instead carries with him a Steel cylinder containing oxygen at a pressure of 120 atmospheres. This is admitted to the helmet by a reducing valve, and the CO2 (carbonic acid gas) producecl by breathing is absorbeel by caustic soda. This apparatus was invented by Mr Fleuss some years ago, and has been much im- proved by him since that date. It is chiefly used by rescue parties after explosions in mines, and enables them to go with perfeet safety into parts of the mines filled with deadly gases. The apparatus when used for this purpose consists of the Steel cylinder of oxygen and a