Liner Notes for Sunken Treasure
Liner Notes for Sunken Treasure This comes at the intersection of three ideas, and I never quite got them to fit neatly. No matter; these stories can be rough around the edges, leave dangling threads. In fact I’ve left some dangling to pick up later, maybe in the final story of this sequence (due December). The first idea is period diving technology. The Standard Diving Dress, the all over suit with the classic helmet, along with air pumps (human-powered or steam, on a suitable vessel) allowed a diver to stay underwater for longer than they could hold their breath, and so spend any amount of time they wanted there. The helmet was invented around 1830; by the time of this story they were regularly used to inspect ships hulls, water facing foundations etc. Using one was not exactly routine – any trip below the water had an element of risk – still it is not quite the novelty made out here. The Civil War, or rather the Civil Wars, or perhaps more generally, the Wars Of The Th...
