Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/227

Rh the fewest number of blows; thus a single stroke is to require more air. The sound is heard very distinctly by those above; but, it must be confessed, that to persons unaccustomed to it, the force with which a weighty hammer is driven against so brittle a material as cast iron is a little alarming.

After ascending a few inches from the bottom, the air in the bell became slightly obscured. At the distance of a few feet this appearance increased. Before it had half reached the surface, it was evident that the whole atmosphere it contained was filled with a mist or cloud, which at last began to condense in large drops on the whole of the internal surface.

The explanation of this phenomenon seems to be, that on the rising of the bell the pressure on the air within being diminished by a weight equal to several feet of water, it began to expand; and some portion of it escaping under the edges of the bell, reduced the temperature of that which remained so much, that it was unable to retain, in the state of invisible vapour, the water which it had previously held in solution. Thus the same principle which constantly produces clouds in the atmosphere filled the diving-bell with mist.

This first led me to consider the much more extensive question of submarine navigation. I was aware that Fulton had already descended in a diving-vessel, and remained under water during several hours. He also carried down a copper sphere containing one cubic foot of space into which he had forced two hundred atmospheres. With these means he remained under water and moved about at pleasure during four hours.

But a closed vessel is obviously of little use for the most important purposes to which submarine navigation would be applied in case of war. In the article Diving Bell, published in 1826, in the 'Encyclopedia Metropolitana,' I gave a 2