The diving bell is the grandfather of the bathyscaphe and the diving suit. Diving bell of the Taylor company (USA)

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The idea of divers using air contained in strong vessels turned upside down and placed on their heads to breathe underwater was more successfully implemented in the diving bell, invented in the 16th century. The diving bell opened a new page in the history of diving. The use of a bell significantly increased the time a diver spent under water compared to diving and also increased the possible depth of immersion compared to using a reed tube for a diver’s breathing.

The first report of the use of a diving bell dates back to 1538. On the Tagus River (Toledo, Spain), 2 Greek acrobats gave a performance in front of Charles V, entering inside a bell of their own design, made in the form of a pot. The candles lit before the bell sank, to the amazement of the spectators, continued to burn after its rise. In 1595, Veranzio published information about the diving bell and gave its image. The English statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) proposed this method: when the diver can no longer hold his breath, he sticks his head into a vessel with air previously lowered into the water to fill his lungs, after which he exits the bell and continues working.

In 1597, the Bonaiuto Lorini bell appeared, similar in design to the Lorena chamber, but equipped with a platform for a diver and intended for fortification work. In 1609, B. Lorini published the book “Fortification” in Venice, in which he pointed out the benefits of devices proposed for a person’s prolonged stay under water in cases where there is a need to raise artillery pieces from the bottom of the sea or to carry out work on sunken ships. In 1616, the artist Franz Kessler from Wetzlar reported data on his invention of the “water armor” - a wooden diving bell. A person, being inside a bell attached to it, moves along the bottom, rolling the bell on special balls.

In 1625, the Spaniard Francisco Melivan used a diving bell made in Havana when searching for and raising sunken ships. The bell was slowly pulled over the ground, and the observer in it carried out a search. 350 silver bars, many coins, bronze cannons and copper items were recovered from the wreck of the St. Margaret.

Particularly successful work using a diving bell was done by the English ship captain and diver William Phips, who, together with Indian divers in 1686-1687. recovered gold, silver and other treasures worth 300 thousand pounds sterling from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Cancepcion, which sank off the Bahamas. A primitive diving bell was used, covered with a layer of lead, with a window in the upper part and seats for divers inside. Phipps was awarded a knighthood, appointed governor of Massachusetts and received a portion of the valuables he had extracted, amounting to more than 11 thousand pounds sterling.

The first diving bells were wooden or metal vessels turned upside down. A descending diver was placed under such a vessel. As the bell sank under water, the water level in the bell rose, the air cushion decreased, and the pressure in it increased. The diver's stay in such a bell did not exceed 30-40 minutes, since carbon dioxide accumulated in the air cushion and the percentage of oxygen decreased. In addition, the diver's body was not protected from the effects of low water temperature, which also contributed to a decrease in the time spent under water.

Various researchers and designers tried to solve the acute problem of replacing the air spent in a diving bell with fresh air in different ways. In 1672-1676. German physicist I.H. Sturm built and tested a diving bell 4 m high, into which air was added from bottles broken as needed under water. In the work of the Italian mathematician and physicist Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, published in 1680 after his death, the idea was put forward of removing used air from under the bell, supplying fresh air instead through hoses. In 1689, the French physicist Denis Papin first gave an accurate scientific description of a bell, in which the replacement of the gaseous medium and the maintenance of constant internal pressure could be achieved by a continuous supply of air from the surface using a pump. The bell included the use of his main inventions - the valve and the non-return valve.

In 1691, the English astronomer and geophysicist Edmund Halley, after whom the famous comet is named, patented the diving bell he invented; in 1716. made a report about it at a meeting of the Royal Scientific Society, and in 1717 he built a bell, which had the shape of a truncated cone with thick glass at the top for natural lighting. It was lined with lead sheets and equipped with three metal blanks on a platform located approximately 1 m below the inlet. Apparently, fearing accusations of plagiarism of D. Papin's bell, E. Halley did not use the idea of pumping air into the bell, but renewed the air in the bell with the help of barrels sent from the surface. Together with four divers, E. Halley descended in a bell and spent an hour and a half at depths of 16-18 m. Fortunately for the scientist and divers, the experiment ended successfully, but if they had stayed at these depths longer, they could have developed decompression sickness. It should also be noted that due to the large mass of the bell, its rise to the surface took quite a long time, i.e. decompression occurred. If an accident had occurred during this experiment, the development of diving technology could have been delayed for a long time.

TREASURES OF "THETYS" AND DIVING BELL

A diving bell is one of the most ancient devices used by man to descend into the depths of the sea. The outstanding English scientist and philosopher Francis Bacon described in 1620 a certain primitive structure on three supports that he happened to see: “A hollow metal vessel was carefully lowered into the water in a vertical position and thus carried along with it to the bottom of the sea the contents contained in it. air".

Such a vessel allowed a diver underwater to occasionally stick his head into its hole and breathe the air contained in it.

The diving bell is surprisingly simple in design and in many ways resembles a glass lowered into the water upside down. The main disadvantage of diving bells was the extremely small supply of air that they could carry. The famous French physicist Papin in 1689 proposed using a pump or bellows to pump air, which would help maintain constant pressure in the bell. The following year, Edmund Halley, the English astronomer after whom the comet was named, designed a kind of forerunner of modern diving bells - a complex structure consisting of the bell itself, leather hoses and two tanks with lead bottoms, which alternately supplied air to the bell.

The bell invented by Halley could be used for diving under water, but it was too heavy. In 1764, Louis Dalmat went to the other extreme, proposing a bell made of leather, which was supposed to be held in the open position solely by the pressure of the air in it. Perhaps the bell would have lived up to the expectations placed on it, but there was not a single fool who would agree to test it.

John Smeaton, an English engineer and builder of the famous Eddystone Lighthouse, invented the first practical diving bell in 1784. It was a box-shaped structure, inside of which a pump was installed that pumped air. During operation, the roof of the bell was located above the surface of the water. A modified version of this bell is still used today along with caissons or bells with an airlock. It is used during various construction work at shallow depths under water, but has not been used for rescue work for a long time.

The closest relatives of the diving bell are: the Beebe bathysphere - a steel ball equipped with portholes and air purification equipment, in which William Beebe, near the Bermuda Islands, dived to a depth of 610 m in 1932; McKenna and Davis rescue chambers; capsule for transporting divers of the American underwater laboratory "Silab" ("Man in the Sea" program).

However, when performing ship lifting or rescue operations, a diving bell is of little use. Apart from the legendary recovery of Spanish gold in 1687 by William Phipps (and it is unknown whether he even used this apparatus), only one major rescue operation owes its success to a diving bell. This is the rise in 1831–1832. gold from the English warship Tethys.

The Tethys, a 46-gun frigate, left Rio de Janeiro on December 4, 1830. The ship carried 810 thousand ft. Art. specie. Two days later, sailing under full sail at a speed of 10 knots, he crashed on the rocks of Cape Frio (southeastern Brazil). Most of the seams in the ship's hull came apart and the masts collapsed. Only a few people from the team managed to jump onto the cliff and thus escape. The frigate with the remaining people on it was carried out to sea by a fast current and sank in a small bay at a distance of just over 500 m from the crash site.

Admiral Baker, in command of the English squadron, considered it futile to make any attempt to salvage the gold, given the high cliffs, great depths, fast currents and frequent storms experienced in the area. However, Thomas Dickinson, captain of the sloop Lightning, did not agree with his opinion. He was an extraordinary person. A brilliant engineer, a man with a broad outlook, Dickinson had one “flaw”: he more than once put his bosses in an awkward position. Ultimately, Baker reluctantly agreed to carry out the rescue operation.

In 1831 there was no Siebe diving suit yet and Dickinson's choices were limited to nude divers and a diving bell. Making a diving bell was easier than getting an experienced diver. Dickinson made the bell from an iron water tank taken from another English warship, the Warspite. To supply air to the inverted tank, it was decided to use a conventional Truscott pump. To ensure that the pump hoses could withstand the pressure of the water, Dickinson gave them sufficient strength: he ordered them to first be flattened with a mallet in order to compact the fabric as much as possible, and then tarred and wrapped in tar-soaked canvas, which was then stitched with thick thread. The hoses lived up to the expectations placed on them.

Dickinson and his crew arrived at Cape Frio on January 24, 1831. The cape actually turned out to be an island three miles long and one mile wide, separated from the mainland by a channel 120 m wide. The examination revealed that the hull of the Tethys had slipped from the rocks into deep water from 10.5 to 21 m.

Since the bay where the ship lay was very narrow, Dickinson first intended to secure the bell to ropes passed between the rocks. Soon, however, he became convinced that when exposed to strong winds, the ropes vibrated and rocked the bell, from which air escaped, so he decided to immerse the bell in the water using a weight boom.

This decision presented him with two new problems - where to install the arrow and what to make it from.

The first problem was solved by destroying the top of the northeastern cliff with the help of gunpowder charges. After the explosion, a fairly flat area measuring 24 x 18 m was formed. In four other places, small platforms were prepared for attaching boom guys.

As calculations have shown, in order to ensure normal descent and ascent of the bell, the boom must have an absolutely incredible length - 48 m and, in addition, be exceptionally strong. The only material that the rescuers had to make such a complex structure were the masts and shrouds of the Tethys itself, washed ashore by the waves. In the end, the rescuers managed to construct an arrow from pieces of wood of various sections. They were spiked and bolted together. Each connection was tightened with metal rings and wrapped with a thick rope. There were too many connections (34), and the finished arrow was too flexible. To hold it in the desired position, it was necessary to attach countless additional guy wires.

When fully equipped, the arrow weighed 40 tons. While the work was going on, Dickinson decided to test the divers - a group of Caribbean Indians delivered on board a Spanish ship. Their main virtue was the consumption of incredible quantities of olive oil, which they, according to them, spat into the sea to make the water clearer.

“Or,” Dickinson noted dryly, “they swallowed it, depending on the circumstances and appetite.” All their efforts were a complete deception and were not worth my reserves of oil for salad dressing.

On the contrary, the efforts of Dickinson and his men were by no means so futile. Even the divers, lowered into the water in a small bell from the stern of the Lightning longboat, soon sent the following message scrawled on a slate board from a depth of 15 m: “Be careful lowering the bell to the bottom - we see money below.”

Following this, a test of the large bell was carried out, which almost ended in disaster. During the descent, he hit the rocks several times and tilted heavily, filling with water. The two volunteer divers in it only miraculously avoided drowning.

Nevertheless, work began, and by the end of May 130 thousand feet had been raised from the bottom of the sea. Art. gold coins. But then a strong storm broke out, destroying the structure that had been erected with such difficulty. However, Dickinson did not give up. This time he decided to carry out his original plan - to use a small bell suspended from strong ropes stretched over the bay. The idea turned out to be successful, although the bell was hit so hard by the wind against the rocks that it had to be replaced five times during the work. They were lucky this time too - no one died.

By March 1832, Dickinson had raised 600 thousand ft. Art. out of 810 thousand, but at the same time seriously angered Admiral Baker. This nobleman considered himself insulted by such a successful execution of the “impossible” operation and removed Dickinson, appointing in his place the Honorable de Roose, commander of the ship Algerine. In handing over command, Dickinson showed exceptional integrity. He showed de Roose the exact location of the treasures lying at the bottom, thereby greatly simplifying his task. De Roose lifted another 161.5 thousand feet. Art., which, together with the previously raised money, amounted to more than 90% of the total value of the money that sank with the Tethys.

Returning to England, Dickinson was amazed to discover that Baker took full credit for both the idea of the rescue operation and the leadership of its implementation. Dickinson was thus only an obedient executor of the admiral's instructions. Although Dickinson received 17 thousand ft. Art. awards, his services in this matter were not recognized at all. Being a stubborn man, Dickinson filed a complaint with the Royal Privy Council, as a result of which the amount of the award increased to 29 thousand pounds, and his services were duly noted.

Some of Lloyd's insurers, having accepted Baker's version on faith, allowed themselves to make a number of critical statements about Dickinson's audacity in appealing to the privy council. In response, Dickinson typed an open letter to "the gentlemen of the coffee shop." Dickinson's subsequently published report, with detailed technical information, left no doubt as to who was the real mastermind of this unprecedented operation.

From the book Passing into Eternity author Lebedev Yuri Mikhailovich

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From the book Stratagems. About the Chinese art of living and surviving. TT. 12 author von Senger Harro

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From the book 100 Great Treasures author Ionina Nadezhda

Exiled bell The fate of one of the Uglich bells, which until 1591 did not stand out in any way, is extraordinary. But when Tsarevich Dmitry was killed, the bell itself suddenly “unexpectedly announced good news.” True, scientists, based on historical facts, talk about this differently.

From the book Moscow in the light of the New Chronology author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

7.2. Tsar Bell The huge Tsar Bell, standing today in the Moscow Kremlin, was cast in 1733-35 by Russian craftsmen I.F. and M.I. Matorin, fig. 7.20. Decorations and inscriptions were made by V. Kobelev, P. Galkin, P. Kokhtev, P. Serebryakov and P. Lukovnikov, vol. 46, p. 441. Weight

From the book Big Plan for the Apocalypse. Earth on the threshold of the End of the World author Zuev Yaroslav Viktorovich

14.2. For whom did the bell toll? So, James Rothschild did not refuse Herzen; on the contrary, he stood up for the rebel, rolling up his sleeves. The help came in very handy, since the vindictive Russian autocrat ordered the seizure of Alexander Ivanovich’s Russian capital. Further

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What is the Zvenigorod bell silent about? To understand that Muscovy before Peter’s time was not yet Rus', and the Muscovites were not yet Russian people, scientists did not have to analyze the DNA of modern residents of Russia and be surprised at their kinship with the Mordvins and Finns.

by Gorse Joseph

DIVING SUIT WITH HARD HELMET In 1837, Siebe significantly improved his invention. Now the waterproof suit covered the diver’s entire body (except for the hands), the legs were shod in galoshes equipped with heavy weights, and the exhaust valve installed in the helmet

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FATAL DELAY ON BOARD THETHYS The British submarine Thethys sank on June 1, 1939, three months after its entry into service and three months before the Nazi invasion of Poland, which marked the beginning of the Second World War. It won't be long before

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From the book American submarines from the beginning of the 20th century to the Second World War author Kashcheev L B

To the question: When and where did people start using the diving bell? given by the author Pink Flamingo the best answer is A diving bell is a means of transporting divers in diving equipment to a depth to the work site and back, with their subsequent transfer to a decompression chamber.
Historically, it was a primitive tool for lowering a person under water and was made in the form of a box or an overturned barrel. The bell with the diver inside was lowered under water and the air inside had a pressure equal to the pressure of the surrounding water. The internal air space of the bell allowed the diver to breathe for some time and perform active actions - to go out or swim out to inspect and repair the underwater part of ships or to search for sunken treasures. Having completed the work, the diver returned to the bell and the device was lifted to the surface of the sea (reservoir) using a crane or winch. In the 19th century, a number of inventors (mechanic Gausen, Siebe) improved the design of the diving bell, creating designs that are rightfully considered primitive diving suits.
The first historically reliable mention of the use of a diving bell dates back to 1531, when Guglielmo di Lorena tried to find treasures from sunken galleys on a lake near the city of Rome at a depth of 22 meters. There is also a description of the successful use of a diving bell in the 19th century to lift gold bars and coins from the sunken British frigate Tethys.
History has preserved the names of many deep exploration enthusiasts. Some legends indicate the participation of Alexander the Great in underwater dives in 330 BC, who descended to the seabed in a kind of diving bell. In the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, dating back to around 1500, there are several sketches of hypothetical breathing apparatus, one of which even represents a diving suit. With the help of a diving bell in the Baltic Sea area, mention should be made of the rescue in 1663 of over 50 guns from the Swedish warship Vasa that sank off Stockholm. Working in the cold Baltic Sea with the then primitive means was considered a great achievement. Subsequently, diving bells of various designs found wide application in rescue operations and the construction of underwater structures. They are still used today. Diving bells laid the foundation for all types of diving equipment powered by compressed air. From the diving bell, development went in two directions. Tightly closing the diving bell from below and supplying air at normal atmospheric pressure led to the appearance of the bathysphere. On the other hand, by increasing the air supply, which equalizes the pressure with the surrounding water pressure, it was possible to move on to diving devices with great maneuverability under water. In 1717, the English astronomer Halley proposed additionally supplying the diving bell with air from air tanks submerged to depth. Halley himself descended to a depth of 17 m. Then the idea was born - to reduce the diving bell to a small helmet, to which air is supplied from above. One of the first to propose such a device was the Russian self-taught inventor Efim Nikonov in 1718. His helmet was a durable wooden barrel covered with leather with a viewing window. Air was supplied to it through a leather pipe. In the second half of the 18th century, an air pump began to be used for diving, this helped to improve devices for immersion in water. In 1797, a “diving machine” built by Klingert was tested on the Oder River near Wraclaw, and in 1819, the Englishman A. Siebe built a diving apparatus consisting of a metal helmet and a leather jacket with sleeves attached to it. In 1837, Siebe finally perfected the diving suit, equipping it with a screw-on helmet with a breathing valve, which was operated by the diver. Source: »

Answer from speedster[guru]
Major milestones in the history of diving4500 BC - Residents of coastal countries such as Greece, Mesopotamia, China began to dive under water to obtain food and to conduct military operations. 1000 BC - Homer in his writings mentions the Greek sponge catchers diving under water to a depth of 30 meters, using a heavy piece of rock. They knew nothing about the physical dangers of diving. In an attempt to compensate for the increasing pressure on their ears, they filled their ear canals and mouths with oil before diving. Once at the bottom, they spat out the oil, cut off as many sponges as they could breathe, and then pulled them out of the water with a rope.500 BC - A diver named Skylias and his daughter Kiana were hired by the Persian king Xerxes to lift them from the bottom treasures 414 BC - The Greek historian Thucydides mentions underwater military operations carried out during the siege of Syracuse. He told of Greek divers diving to the bottom of the harbor to remove underwater obstructions. 360 BC - Aristotle mentions the use of a kind of diving bell with an air supply. 332 BC - Alexander the Great, during the siege of a city in Lebanon, used demolition divers to clear the entrance to the bay. It is mentioned that Alexander himself, observing the work being carried out, made several dives, using a rough resemblance of a bell. 77 AD - Pliny the Elder mentions the use of air hoses by divers. 100 AD - Divers began using breathing tubes made from hollow reed stalks. 200 AD - A Peruvian vase shows divers using goggles and holding fish . 1300 AD - Persian divers use swimming goggles made from polished shells or turtle shells. 1500: Leonardo da Vinci developed the first scuba diving apparatus. His drawing of an independent underwater breathing apparatus is included in the Codex Atlanticus. Da Vinci's drawing depicts a device that combines a buoyancy compensator and a container for air used for breathing. Also in the picture there is a prototype of wetsuits of our time. There is no evidence that Leonardo made this device. He seems to have abandoned the idea of independent breathing apparatus in favor of improving the design of the diving bell. 1535 - Gugliemo de Loreno created what can be called a real diving bell. Gugliemo became the first person to dive underwater for an hour using a bell. 1578 - William Bourne designed the first submarine, but the project did not go beyond drawing. The design of Bourne's submarine was based on ballast tanks, which were filled with water to submerge under water, or dumped to rise to the surface. Modern submarines operate based on the same principle. 1620 - The Dutchman Cornelis Drebble developed and built a rowing underwater (the first successful attempt to build an underwater vessel) apparatus. Cornelis created a wooden apparatus enclosed in a leather case. It could accommodate 12 oarsmen, and the total crew could be 20 people. Surprisingly, this ship was capable of diving to a depth of 20 meters, swimming a distance of up to 10 kilometers. 1622 - On the way home, the Spanish fleet, carrying untold treasures, was hit by a hurricane, and most of the ships sank in the Florida Keys. Using a specially made diving bell, the Spaniards managed to lift a small part of the treasure, but most of it remained at the bottom. http://www.decostop.ru/cgi-bin/articles/equipment/74.htmlhttp://www.scubacenter.ru/modules/news/article.php?storyid=150

For this simple experiment, an ordinary basin is suitable; but if you can get a deep and wide jar, the experiment will be more convenient. In addition, we will need another tall glass or large glass. This will be your diving bell, and the bowl of water will represent a smaller version of the sea or lake.

There is hardly an experience simpler than this. You hold the glass upside down, dip it in

the bottom of the basin, continuing to hold it with your hand (so that the water does not push it out). At the same time, you can easily notice that water almost does not penetrate inside the glass: the air does not allow it. This becomes much clearer when there is some easily wet object under your bell, such as a piece of sugar. Place 1 cork circle on the water, sugar on it and cover with a glass on top. Now lower the glass into the water. The sugar will be below the water level, but will remain dry, since the water will not penetrate under the glass.

The same experiment can be done with a glass funnel if you turn it with the wide end down and close it tightly! finger its hole and then immerse it in water. Water does not penetrate under the funnel; but as soon as you take your finger away from the hole; and thus allow the air to escape so that the water quickly rises in the funnel to the level of the surrounding water.

You see that air is not “nothing”, as we are used to! think; it occupies a certain place and does not give it up to other things if it has nowhere to go.

These experiments should also clearly explain to you how people can stay and work under water in a diving bell or inside those wide pipes called “caissons.” Water does not penetrate inside the diving bell or caisson for the same reason that it does not flow under the glass in our experiment.

From a postcard or a sheet of thick paper, cut out a circle the size of the hole in a glass. Then cut it with scissors along a spiral line in the form of a coiled snake, placing the tip of the snake's tail, pressing it slightly at first to make a small hole in the paper, on the point of a knitting needle stuck into the cork. The curls of the snake will descend, forming something like a spiral...

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You've probably heard that pieces of ice "freeze" under pressure. This does not mean that pieces of ice freeze even more when pressure is applied to them. Just the opposite: under strong pressure the ice melts, but as soon as the cold water formed is released from the pressure, it freezes again (because its temperature is below 0°). When we squeeze the pieces...

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Among the materials that convey sounds well, I mentioned bones in a previous article. Want to see if your own skull bones have this property? Grab the ring of your pocket watch with your teeth and cover your ears with your hands; you will hear quite clearly the measured blows of the balancer, noticeably louder than the ticking perceived by the ear through the air. These sounds reach your ear through...

Do you want to see something unusual?..- my older brother turned to me one evening.- Come with me to the next room. The room was dark. Brother took the candle and we went. I bravely walked ahead, boldly opened the door and bravely entered the room first. But suddenly I was stupefied: some absurd monster was looking at me from the wall. Flat like...

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Open the umbrella, rest its end on the floor, spin it around and at the same time throw inside a ball, crumpled paper, a handkerchief - in general, some light and unbreakable object. Something unexpected will happen to you. It’s as if the umbrella doesn’t want to accept the gift: the ball or paper ball will crawl up to the edges of the umbrella and fly from there in a straight line. The power that...

If in your apartment or in the apartment of your friends there is a room with windows on the sunny side, then you can easily turn it into a physical device, which bears the old Latin name “camera obscura” (in Russian this means “dark room”). To do this, you will need to cover the window with a shield, for example, made of plywood or cardboard, covered with dark paper, and make...

Diving bell

Modern diving bell

Diving bell- currently this is a means of transporting divers in diving equipment to depths to the work site and back, with their subsequent transfer to a decompression chamber, but this was not always the case.

Historically, it was a primitive tool for lowering a person under water and was made in the form of a box or an overturned barrel. The bell with the diver inside was lowered under water and the air inside had a pressure equal to the pressure of the surrounding water. The internal air space of the bell allowed the diver to breathe for some time and perform active actions - to go out or swim out to inspect and repair the underwater part of ships, or to search for sunken treasures. Having completed the work, the diver returned to the bell and the device was lifted to the surface of the sea (reservoir) using a crane or winch. In the 19th century, a number of inventors (mechanic Gausen, Siebe) improved the design of the diving bell, creating designs that are rightfully considered primitive diving suits.

The first historically reliable mention of the use of a diving bell dates back to 1531, when Guglielmo di Lorena tried to find treasures from sunken galleys on a lake near the city of Rome at a depth of 22 meters. In the middle of the 17th century, Swedish divers under the leadership of Albrekt von Treileben, using a diving bell, managed to bring to the surface over 50 cannons from the sunken ship Vasa. There is also a description of the successful use of a diving bell in the 19th century to lift gold bars and coins from the sunken British frigate Tethys.

The diving bell is the grandfather of the bathyscaphe and the diving suit. Diving bell of the Taylor company (USA)

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