Science: Diving Ball

If Earth were scaled down to the size of an ordinary library globe, the height to which man has ascended from it (43,166 ft.) would about equal the coating of shellac on the sphere. The greatest depth to which he has descended would about equal the thickness of the map paper. On the water-covered portion (7/10) he would have penetrated only a fractional part of the paper.

Last week word came from the William Beebe expedition to Nonsuch, “most beautiful” island in the Bermuda group, that they had made deeper incursions into the sea than man had ever made before.

Seated in a steel sphere Explorer Beebe and Otis Barton, inventor, dropped 1,426 ft. into the sea, 1,076 ft. deeper than the record. On the sphere’s outer surface was fastened a dead fish. Through thick windows of fused quartz the divers could peer out at deep sea creatures, lured near by the fish bait, never before seen by man in their natural state. So great was the depth that only the blue and violet rays of the sun’s spectrum penetrated, yet the submarine scene seemed brilliantly lighted compared to the gloom of the diving chamber when its electric bulb was turned off.

Inventor Otis Barton—Harvard graduate (1922), onetime Paris art student, African big game hunter—last year de-signed and built a diving ball which proved too heavy for any practical hoisting equipment.The present, successful model weighs two tons. The diving “bell” de-signed and operated in the Mediterranean with some success by Inventor Hans Hartman (TIME, Aug. 24, 1925) is cylindrical in shape with a rounded top, stabilizing propellers and a detachable sinker to be dropped in case of trouble. Barton’s diving ball presents a minimum surface relative to content, hence has less pressure to withstand. Added virtue: all the stresses are uniform.

Locale of Explorer Beebe’s present proj-ect (to build up a picture of sea life in strata to a great depth) is a great well in the sea five miles south of Nonsuch. Over the well, a mile deep and eight miles in diameter, the tug Gladisfen cruises about. From a trailing drag line which scrapes the bottom, nets are strung to capture specimens in strata 100 fathoms apart.