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万物简史英文版_比尔·布莱森-第63部分

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me of a new scientific discipline:

oceanography。 they also discovered; by means of depth measurements; that there appeared tobe submerged mountains in the mid…atlantic; prompting some excited observers to speculatethat they had found the lost continent of atlantis。

because the institutional world mostly ignored the seas; it fell to devoted鈥攁nd veryoccasional鈥攁mateurs to tell us what was down there。 modern deep…water exploration beginswith charles william beebe and otis barton in 1930。 although they were equal partners; themore colorful beebe has always received far more written attention。 born in 1877 into a well…to…do family in new york city; beebe studied zoology at columbia university; then took ajob as a birdkeeper at the new york zoological society。 tiring of that; he decided to adoptthe life of an adventurer and for the next quarter century traveled extensively through asiaand south america with a succession of attractive female assistants whose jobs wereinventively described as 鈥渉istorian and technicist鈥潯r 鈥渁ssistant in fish problems。鈥潯esupported these endeavors with a succession of popular books with titles like edge of thejungle and jungle days; though he also produced some respectable books on wildlife andornithology。

in the mid…1920s; on a trip to the gal谩pagos islands; he discovered 鈥渢he delights ofdangling;鈥潯s he described deep…sea diving。 soon afterward he teamed up with barton; whocame from an even wealthier family; had also attended columbia; and also longed foradventure。 although beebe nearly always gets the credit; it was in fact barton who designedthe first bathysphere (from the greek word for 鈥渄eep鈥潱nd funded the 12;000 cost of itsconstruction。 it was a tiny and necessarily robust chamber; made of cast iron 1。5 inches thickand with two small portholes containing quartz blocks three inches thick。 it held two men; butonly if they were prepared to bee extremely well acquainted。 even by the standards of theage; the technology was unsophisticated。 the sphere had no maneuverability鈥攊t simply hungon the end of a long cable鈥攁nd only the most primitive breathing system: to neutralize theirown carbon dioxide they set out open cans of soda lime; and to absorb moisture they opened asmall tub of calcium chloride; over which they sometimes waved palm fronds to encouragechemical reactions。

but the nameless little bathysphere did the job it was intended to do。 on the first dive; injune 1930 in the bahamas; barton and beebe set a world record by descending to 600 feet。 by1934; they had pushed the record to 3;028 feet; where it would stay until after the war。 bartonwas confident the device was safe to a depth of 4;500 feet; though the strain on every bolt andrivet was audibly evident with each fathom they descended。 at any depth; it was brave andrisky work。 at 3;000 feet; their little porthole was subjected to nineteen tons of pressure persquare inch。 death at such a depth would have been instantaneous; as beebe never failed toobserve in his many books; articles; and radio broadcasts。 their main concern; however; wasthat the shipboard winch; straining to hold on to a metal ball and two tons of steel cable;would snap and send the two men plunging to the seafloor。 in such an event; nothing couldhave saved them。

the one thing their descents didn鈥檛 produce was a great deal of worthwhile science。

although they encountered many creatures that had not been seen before; the limits ofvisibility and the fact that neither of the intrepid aquanauts was a trained oceanographer meantthey often weren鈥檛 able to describe their findings in the kind of detail that real scientistscraved。 the sphere didn鈥檛 carry an external light; merely a 250…watt bulb they could hold upto the window; but the water below five hundred feet was practically impenetrable anyway;and they were peering into it through three inches of quartz; so anything they hoped to viewwould have to be nearly as interested in them as they were in it。 about all they could report; inconsequence; was that there were a lot of strange things down there。 on one dive in 1934;beebe was startled to spy a giant serpent 鈥渕ore than twenty feet long and very wide。鈥潯tpassed too swiftly to be more than a shadow。 whatever it was; nothing like it has been seenby anyone since。 because of such vagueness their reports were generally ignored byacademics。

after their record…breaking descent of 1934; beebe lost interest in diving and moved on toother adventures; but barton persevered。 to his credit; beebe always told anyone who askedthat barton was the real brains behind the enterprise; but barton seemed unable to step fromthe shadows。 he; too; wrote thrilling accounts of their underwater adventures and even starredin a hollywood movie called titans of the deep; featuring a bathysphere and many excitingand largely fictionalized encounters with aggressive giant squid and the like。 he evenadvertised camel cigarettes (鈥渢hey don鈥檛 give me jittery nerves鈥潱!n 1948 he increased thedepth record by 50 percent; with a dive to 4;500 feet in the pacific ocean near california; butthe world seemed determined to overlook him。 one newspaper reviewer of titans of the deepactually thought the star of the film was beebe。 nowadays; barton is lucky to get a mention。

at all events; he was about to be prehensively eclipsed by a father…and…son team fromswitzerland; auguste and jacques piccard; who were designing a new type of probe called abathyscaphe (meaning 鈥渄eep boat鈥潱!hristened trieste; after the italian city in which it wasbuilt; the new device maneuvered independently; though it did little more than just go up anddown。 on one of its first dives; in early 1954; it descended to below 13;287 feet; nearly threetimes barton鈥檚 record…breaking dive of six years earlier。 but deep…sea dives required a greatdeal of costly support; and the piccards were gradually going broke。

in 1958; they did a deal with the u。s。 navy; which gave the navy ownership but left themin control。 now flush with funds; the piccards rebuilt the vessel; giving it walls five inchesthick and shrinking the windows to just two inches in diameter鈥攍ittle more than peepholes。

but it was now strong enough to withstand truly enormous pressures; and in january 1960jacques piccard and lieutenant don walsh of the u。s。 navy sank slowly to the bottom of theocean鈥檚 deepest canyon; the mariana trench; some 250 miles off guam in the western pacific(and discovered; not incidentally; by harry hess with his fathometer)。 it took just under fourhours to fall 35;820 feet; or almost seven miles。 although the pressure at that depth wasnearly 17;000 pounds per square inch; they noticed with surprise that they disturbed a bottom…dwelling flatfish just as they touched down。 they had no facilities for taking photographs; sothere is no visual record of the event。

after just twenty minutes at the world鈥檚 deepest point; they returned to the surface。 it wasthe only occasion on which human beings have gone so deep。

forty years later; the question that naturally occurs is: why has no one gone back since? tobegin with; further dives were vigorously opposed by vice admiral hyman g。 rickover; aman who had a lively temperament; forceful views; and; most pertinently; control of thedepartmental checkbook。 he thought underwater exploration a waste of resources and pointedout that the navy was not a research institute。 the nation; moreover; was about to beefully preoccupied with space travel and the quest to send a man to the moon; which madedeep sea investigations seem unimportant and rather old…fashioned。 but the decisiveconsideration was that the trieste descent didn鈥檛 actually achieve much。 as a navy officialexplained years later: 鈥渨e didn鈥檛 learn a hell of a lot from it; other than that we could do it。

why do it again?鈥潯t was; in short; a long way to go to find a flatfish; and expensive too。

repeating the exercise today; it has been estimated; would cost at least 100 million。

when underwater researchers realized that the navy had no intention of pursuing apromised exploration program; there was a pained outcry。 partly to placate its critics; thenavy provided funding for a more advanced submersible; to be operated by the woods holeoceanographic institution of massachusetts。 called alvin; in somewhat contracted honor ofthe oceanographer allyn c。 vine; it would be a fully maneuverable minisubmarine; though itwouldn鈥檛 go anywhere near as deep as the trieste。 there was just one problem: the designerscouldn鈥檛 find anyone willing to build it。 according to william j。 broad in the universebelow: 鈥渘o big pany like general dynamics; which made submarines for the navy;wanted to take on a project disparaged by both the bureau of ships and admiral rickover; thegods of naval patronage。鈥潯ventually; not to say improbably; alvin was constructed bygeneral mills; the food pany; at a factory where it made the machines to producebreakfast cereals。

as for what else was down there; people really had very little idea。 well into the 1950s; thebest maps available to oceanographers were overwhelmingly based on a little detail fromscattered surveys going back to 1929 grafted onto; essentially an ocean of gu
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