Friends Director Dr. Randy Davis arrived on a cruise ship on February 24th traveling with his wife and parents. He was delighted to see that we had assembled the old helmet-diver’s “air pump” that we also acquired for the Murphy exhibit.
Randy is the one who found this rare artifact in England and arranged for the Museum to purchase it.
The wooden cabinet makes it look disarmingly simple, but once you open the top and look inside you can see the crankshaft, pistons, cylinders, cooling jacket, valves, gauges, and other machinery that makes it quite heavy. British broad arrows stamped into some of the parts signify that it was once property of the Royal Navy.