Master of the Abyss Page #2

Barton's hopes and dreams

for the world's first working deep-

diving capsule start to take shape.

It is a hollow sphere of

inch-and-a-half thick steel.

Its strength lies in its round design-

withstanding the relentless ocean

pressure by equalizing its assault.

No glass is strong enough

for portholes.

Barton orders panes of fused quartz,

three inches thick.

These tiny windows might allow man's

first glimpse of the living deep-

but they too,

must withstand the pressure.

The factory work

takes more than a year.

Beebe is within reach of his dream.

Word comes from New York.

The diving globe is ready.

For Otis Barton,

the price tag of 12,000 dollars proves

to be a sizeable chunk of his fortune.

In May, 1930,

Barton arrives in Bermuda.

He has come with the vessel that,

if it works,

will transport two men to the

unknown deep-

making history, and changing science.

On the docks of Bermuda,

William Beebe inspects

the bizarre deep-sea capsule.

He calls the invention a bathysphere-

meaning "deep sea ball".

Barton's plan is simple.

The bathysphere will descend on

a 3500-foot steel cable.

The hatch is just 14 inches wide,

sealed from the outside with

a 400-pound steel door.

The bathysphere is

unwieldy and untested,

but it is Beebe's best and only

prospect to get to the deep alive.

June 3, 1930. The journey

to deep waters begins.

Beebe and Barton hire a retired

British warship, the Ready,

to serve as mother ship

for the bathysphere.

The Ready isn't ready for much.

The tired old hulk must be towed to

the deep water site

so Beebe can make his first descent.

Beebe cannibalizes the winch from

his old research vessel Arcturus

and bolts it to the Ready's deck.

It will have to support

the bathysphere's

two-and-a-half ton weight,

plus two tons of steel cable.

If the cable snaps or snags,

the bathysphere, and the men,

will plummet to the ocean floor,

with no hope of rescue.

Beebe chooses a place a few miles

off shore,

where waters are a mile

and a half deep.

The Ready is halted.

First-an unmanned test-to see if

the bathysphere performs as planned.

As the power winch lets out

the steel cable,

an additional rubber-coated electric

line is deployed by hand.

This line will allow them to use

a searchlight,

and more importantly, to communicate

with the mother ship.

In just forty minutes the steel ball

dangles 2000 feet below the surface.

The simple test ends in disaster.

The vital electrical conduit

has snaked itself

around the top of the capsule

no fewer than forty-five times.

Beebe fears that his adventure may

be over, before it has even begun.

It looked as if we were to pay penalty

at the very start

for daring to attempt to delve into

the forbidden depths.

Beebe has learned his first lesson

in deep-ocean exploration.

Every attention must be paid

to mechanical matters.

The ocean is not forgiving-the

slightest miscalculation could kill.

It takes a full day

to unravel the cable.

No damage is found.

Three days later, on June 6,

Beebe tries another unmanned test.

This time, the cables do not tangle.

But upon inspection,

Beebe and Barton discover a small

pool of water in the sealed capsule.

All things considered,

Beebe declares the test a success.

He'll risk his life-and Barton's-

and attempt the decent.

Beebe and Barton outfit the capsule

with oxygen tanks and

purifying chemical trays:

soda lime for clearing

carbon monoxide,

and calcium chloride

for absorbing moisture.

Beebe hasn't forgotten

his first lesson-

he will concentrate solely

on the mechanics of his mission-

dive one is not for science,

but survival.

At the moment Beebe has waited

for and dreamed of-

he finds himself at a loss for words.

"I looked around at the sea and sky,

the boats and my friends,

and not being able to think of

any pithy saying

which might echo down the ages,

I said nothing, crawled painfully

over the steel bolts,

fell inside and curled up on the cold,

hard bottom of the sphere."

On deck, John Teevan supervises

the mission.

He has served William Beebe

for half his life.

Now Beebe's life is in his hands.

Beebe and Barton are big men-

both of them, six feet tall,

crammed into a sphere less than

five feet across.

Heavy hammers pound steel bolts tight,

a deafening experience

inside the sphere.

Gloria Hollister will communicate

with Beebe by telephone-

the first to record his observations,

or to hear his final words

in the event of a catastrophe.

The final bolt.

On deck, the team is tense,

each person concentrating,

hoping for the best,

imagining the worst.

Nothing has been left to chance,

yet no one has ever attempted

anything like this before.

At one PM, on June 6, 1930,

the bathysphere is swung

over the side.

In less than a minute,

they are sixty feet down, the range

of Beebe's old copper helmet.

They are suspended by

a thread of steel,

with a mile and a half of

ocean beneath them-

and no hope of rescue

if their equipment fails.

Barton closely monitors

the oxygen supply.

Too little, and they will

slowly suffocate.

Too much, and they can

become disoriented.

At 600 feet, Beebe speaks from

a place no living man has ever been.

"Only dead men have sunk below this."

Beyond the tiny windows,

the two ocean pioneers

witness an eerie twilight.

"We were the first living men to look

out at the strange illumination:

an indefinable translucent blue."

Then, at 800 feet,

with all going well,

Beebe suddenly calls off the descent.

His instincts tell him, stop.

"Some hunch-some mental warning

which I have had at half a dozen

critical times in my life,

spelled bottom for this trip."

At this depth, Beebe knows that

the ocean pressure would kill them

in a way much more terrifying

than drowning.

"There was no possible chance

of being drowned,

for the first few drops

would have shot

through flesh and bone

like steel bullets."

He orders Teevan to haul them home.

Two strangers in a strange device

have dived deeper than

any living men in history.

Consumed by the operation of

the sphere itself,

Beebe has paid little attention to

the world of the deep-

but he has proven that humans can

descend into the abyss and return alive.

His team greets him with

congratulations, elation, and relief.

William Beebe and Otis Barton

will descend again,

deeper - not just for adventure,

but for science.

Their journey has only begun.

The unlikely partnership of William

Beebe and Otis Barton has created

an entirely new field of science-

manned exploration of the deep ocean.

They know they can get there-

but what's down there?

Now the real work of scientific

observation begins.

On June 11, 1930, they are lowered

again into the Bermuda chasm-

more than three thousand tons of

water pressure

assaults the steel hull,

but again it holds firm-

and offers Beebe and Barton

a first look at the creatures of

the ocean abyss.

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