DEEP SEA DIVING

Hokitika Guardian, 22 August 1930, Page 1

DEEP SEA DIVING

DESCENT IN STEEL SPHERE

DEPTH OF OVER A QUARTER OF MILE.

LONDON, August 22. Two American scientists, working from Nonsuch Island, have just penetrated in a steel sphere to a depth of 142(j feet, or nearly live times as much as the previous low-depth record for diving with any kind of apparatus.

Dr. William Beebe, head of the Bermuda Oceanographic Expedition of the New York Zoological Society, and Mr Otis Barton, of the American Museum New York, were the explorers, and were “battened down” in a siteel sphere with an internal diameter of fiftyseven inches and several inches' thick, fitted with fused quartz observation windows, a telephone to communicate with the tug from which it was lowered, and equipment to keep the air pure—oxygen tanks for supply, and a quantity of sodium to interact with and.render harmless the carbon ar-ox-icle exhaled.

The weight of the sphere is 54001 b and as it was lowered in calm water five hides off the islands, where there are 'no known currents, either .surface or submarine, there can be little or no doubt that it descended vertically in a straight line, and that the length of cable paid out represents the actual depth reached. The sphere was specially constructed in the United States to the order of Mr Barton, who financed the experiment after working on the plan for over a year with Dr Beebe. When the two scientists had been made fast, the sphere was lowered at a fair .speed from the deck of the tug into the water, which has a depth at this point of about eight hundred

fathoms. A calibrated meter attached to the 'winch registered 1420 feet when Mr Barton, who was in charge of the telephone, gave word to stop. A coun-ter-check, obtained by marking off the cable in one hundred 'feet lengths, showed 1428 feet, or an experimental error of less than 0.15 per cent. 3100 TONS ON SPHERE. At this depth the water above tlie sphere exerts a pressure of 6521 b to the square inch, or over forty-three atmospheres, and the actual weight of water on the sphere would be about 6100 tons. the sphere showed no sign of failing to withstand the terriffic strain imposed upon it, and the men below reported that* they felt no discomfort whatever. All that Mr Barton said on the telephone was clearly heard on the:deck of the tug by Miss Gloria Hollister, another member of Dr Beebe’s expedition, and readily taken down. At this depth most of the light from the sun had been cut off by the intervening water, only the rays at the blue violent end of the spectrum penetrating. At a depth of a thousand metres or a little more than twice the depth attained in this attempt, only the extreme violet rays persist, and between 1000 and 1700 metres all light rays are cut off. Dr Beeclee stated after bis descent that the elimination of the middle and red end of the spectrum left an intense and seemingly brilliant blue light, quite strong enough for fairly easy observation of the fish that came past the windows, hut useless for reading the guages on the oxygen tanks, as it did not seem to reflect readily. FISH WITH OWN LIGHTING. The fish that live at this depth are usually caught only on expeditions such as the famous voyage of the Challenger ,and, more recently the voyage of the steam yacht A returns, and, although several thousands of them have beeii caught by the expedition at Nonsuch Island, Bermuda, in nets trailed from a tug at depths up to eight hundred fathoms, they are so unfamiliar that it was not found possible to identify them by a casual observation. The specimens that present themselves most readily, however, all belong to the extraordinary class which Dr Beebe has been so successful in catching during his two years work at Nonsuch —fish which carry their own lighting systems, built on an infinite variety of different patterns, hut all depending on two organic chemical compounds, luci'ferin and luciferase, of which little is so far known.