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A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit may also incorporate a breathing gas supply (i.e. Standard diving dress or atmospheric diving suit).〔(Diving suit term: may include air supply system )〕 but in most cases applies only to the environmental protective covering worn by the diver. The breathing gas supply is usually referred to separately. There is no generic term for the combination of suit and breathing apparatus alone. It is generally referred to as diving equipment or dive gear along with any other equipment necessary for the dive. ==History== The first diving dress designs appeared in the early 18th century. Two English inventors developed the first pressure-proof diving suits in the 1710s. John Lethbridge built a completely enclosed suit to aid in salvage work. It consisted of a pressure-proof air-filled barrel with a glass viewing hole and two watertight enclosed sleeves.〔(John Lethbridge, inventor from Newton Abbot ), BBC website〕 This suit gave the diver more maneouverability to accomplish useful underwater salvage work. After testing this machine in his garden pond (specially built for the purpose) Lethbridge dived on a number of wrecks: four English men-of-war, one East Indiaman (both English and Dutch), two Spanish galleons and a number of galleys. He became very wealthy as a result of his salvages. One of his better-known recoveries was on the Dutch ''Slot ter Hooge'', which had sunk off Madeira with over three tons of silver on board. At the same time, Andrew Becker created a leather-covered diving suit with a helmet featuring a window. Becker used a system of tubes for inhaling and exhaling, and demonstrated his suit in the River Thames, London, during which he remained submerged for an hour. German-born British engineer Augustus Siebe developed the standard diving dress in the 1830s. Expanding on improvements already made by another engineer, George Edwards, Siebe produced his own design - a helmet fitted to a full length watertight canvas diving suit. Later dresses were made with waterproofed canvas invented by Charles Mackintosh. From the late 1800s and throughout most of the 20th century, most Standard Dresses consisted of a solid sheet of rubber between layers of tan twill. Diving suits made of rubber were used in World War II by Italian frogmen who found them indispensable in their use. They were made by Pirelli and patented in 1951.〔(The first rubber wet suit made by Pirelli and patented in 1951 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「diving suit」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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