JF Ptak Science Books Post 1853
Well, not really. It is however an early diving suit (and perhaps the earliest apparatus worn on the person and submerged) the creative and comparatively lightweight effort of Karl Heinrich Klingert, who produced it at the very end of the 18th century, in 1797 or thereabouts. The suit was made of a metal helmet and wide metal girdle, with the vest and pants made of a waterproof leather, and with leather (?) leg straps. The air would be pumped down to the diver from a turret above (see below, just) and would arrive in the diver's helmet via weighted air tubes.
Here's a side and occupied view:
And the turret that supplied the air:
[Image source: from the great Bibliodyssey blog, here.]
Actually I said "lightweight" in reference to the diving suits that were to come--the so-called "heavy footers" that encased the diver in heavy leather with an attached metal helmet and weighted boots--though this was probably the first "diving suit", distinguishing itself from diving bells. It was a revolutionary event, this development, and allowed people to (more) safely get to the bottom of a piece of water and work or explore, the first relatively mobile and flexible underwater human exploring architecture of note.
These images (with the exception of the turret) are all from one sheet of illustrations for Abraham Rees Cyclopedia, which was published between 1804 and 1820 (this appearing in 1816). The illustrations are beautiful and fine, and even though complicated they do not make the sheet too complex to be of service.
Here's another, the Dr. Edmond Halley (of the comet and friend and proponent of I. Newton) diving bell, which precedes the suit by more than a hundred years, making an appearance in 1680:
A bell was sent to the bottom, and then weighted, the assistant surviving on the air trapped in the bell, and the diver, wearing another smaller "diving bell" on his head,could make his way around a bit to the extent of the tube which would draw on the air in the bell. The two would be resupplied with air in weight barrels sent down from topside, to be retrieved by the diver and lugged over to the bell.
The diving bell of Charles Spalding (1787) is next, a 200-gallon metal bell fed with air from lowered barrels:
Marten Triewald's diving bell appeared in his 1741 The Art of Living Under Water:
It was a single-person device, the submariner standing on the platform "E" that was attached to the air-trapping bell above.
All of the above (save for the Bibliodyssey image) are from here, one engraved plate of elegant technical completeness:
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