Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving [Hardcover]

Trevor Norton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2001

In a series of brilliantly detailed portraits, this history of the daring art of diving recounts the eccentric exploits and sense-defying feats of the men who turned underwater adventure into a modern science. Spear fishermen and conservationists, treasure hunters and archaeologists, photographers and philosophers -- these pioneers invented and experimented with all sorts of amazing devices to enable them to explore the secretive and seductive depths of the sea. Among the colorful adventurers from the past two centuries included in this volume stand the likes of Guy Gilpatric, who wrote a film for Humphrey Bogart, invented snorkeling, and shot his wife; Roy Miner, who wore a bucket over his head and stole a coral reef; William Beebe, who sealed himself in a metal coffin to dangle a half mile undersea; and John Haldane, who learned how to control human breathing and prevent bends. If you've never even dreamed of diving, this book will make you wonder why -- and may indeed tempt you to try.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the intersection of science and adventure, pioneers of deep-sea diving risked their lives to explore the ocean's depths. To honor them, British marine biologist Norton has constructed a delightful portrait gallery of 13 scientists, inventors, daredevils, eccentrics and archeologists. Henri Milne Edwards, a Belgian-born French zoologist, invented the portable diving bell in 1844 and explored the Mediterranean around Sicily, becoming the first marine biologist to describe living subtidal communities. William Beebe, a world traveler and naturalist who built the Bronx Zoo's aviary, observed sea creatures new to science by descending more than 3,000 feet in a bathysphere in the Bahamas. Among Norton's unsung heroes appear several profiles in courage: English zoologist/diver Jack Kitching had himself dumped in the icy north Atlantic in order to test the survival suit that he designed for downed pilots during WWII; scuba diver Fr?d?ric Dumas (a collaborator with Jacques Cousteau) fearlessly explored sunken ships; and geneticist J.B.S. Haldane used physiological research to help British soldiers in WWII escape from submarines. Norton writes with a light touch and a wonderful feel for his material. Illustrated with photos and drawings, his survey of lives changed by an obsession with the sea--and its depths--swims with serendipitous adventures, odd twists and dark moments. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

As a serious scuba diver interested in diving's history, this reviewer enjoyed Stars Beneath the Sea. The biographical sketches of some of the lesser-known diving pioneers--including the first scientific diver, Henri Milne Edwards; father-and-son physiologists John and J.B.S. Haldane; Frederic Dumas, the colleague of Jacques Cousteau; and underwater archaeologist Peter Throckmorton--added to her knowledge of deep-sea diving. However, the very informal, anecdotal, and superficial style of the profiles and the many British terms unfamiliar to American readers (Norton is English, and the book was originally published in the U.K. in 1999) limit the book's value in U.S academic libraries. Also, the somewhat off-color nature of some of the nondiving anecdotes included about the subjects is sure to make collection developers cringe. With these caveats, this book is recommended for personal collections and for public, academic, and special libraries with collections on diving and underwater science--Margaret Rioux MBL/WHOI Lib., Woods Hole, MA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 282 pages
• Publisher: Diane Pub Co (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756765188
• ISBN-13: 978-0756765187
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,415,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brave Oddballs Who Opened Underneath the Sea to Us, November 1, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving (Hardcover)

This is a very rare book. It looks at brave pioneers in an honest and humorous way. You will get a sense of daredevils challenging fate from these stories about the development of undersea exploration by divers.

I called them "oddballs" in my title because most were quite unusual in their personal characteristics, as you will learn from reading the book. Families, personal possessions, and social lives were unusual in almost all cases. They remind me a lot of the barnstorming aviators who pioneered air services.

The book is a series of vignettes about those who first developed diving gear, did underwater biological research, collected samples for museums, learned how to balance gases and pressures to avoid death and injury from diving, hunted underwater with spears, farmed underwater with oysters, took photographs underwater, made movies underwater, and performed archeology on ship wrecks.

The stories are remarkable for three characteristics. First, it took a lot of guts to try these things. The gear wasn't so good, and the dangers were very great. A lot of injury and death did follow. Second, in doing research, these men usually employed themselves as guinea pigs at great personal risk. Many had their lives shortened or their health damaged as a result. Third, almost all of the pioneers ravaged and despoiled whatever area they initially studied. For example, vast reefs were dynamited to bring back samples that museums later discarded. More rare pottery was destroyed in early undersea archeology than was collected. Some of these men thought better of it later, and argued for changed methods.

Some of the people were genuises, uncovering major areas of new knowledge (like the Haldanes, father and son). Others were simply gifted tinkerers. Some were just in the right place at the right time with a yen to scratch. But they all had magnificent passions and harnessed those passions to invent methods that have important applications today.

The stories are enlivened by many drawings and photographs of the people and their work. The newer pioneers were personally known by the author, Professor Norton, and his recollections add much to the reader's enjoyment.

If you have ever marveled at sites under water that you have seen on television, in movies, or in books, you will be riveted by this book. The bulk of the developments that make these accomplishments possible are quite new, and were hard-wrought in most cases.

Professor Norton tells his tales like an old salt holding a pint of grog in a smoky tavern near a fire in a fishing harbor on the Irish Sea. You'll love them!

After you have finished enjoying this book, I encourage you to think about where else you do not know the background of some wonderful modern capability that inspires you. What about cave exploration? Many of the great beauties in caves were unknown until the last few hundred years.

Then go learn more about whatever inspiring subject it is that you do not yet know the development of. This should greatly add to you understanding of what you enjoy. It may even encourage you to employ your passion in this area in a new way!

Take a deep breath and dive right in!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh-out-loud funny!, May 17, 2002

By 

A. J. Watson "Bones" (Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving (Hardcover)

I can't remember the last time I laughed so long and loud over a book. This is very, very amusing, laugh-out-loud funny, yet highly informative and interesting, e.g. the first recorded Dive Club had the singularly unimaginative name of 'The Bottom-Scratchers'!
The book is peppered with excerpts from many other books, but loses nothing by that, rather it shows how much research reading has been done.
We are taken on a biographical tour through the stars of underwater invention, in no particular order, but there are some early pioneers who are not mentioned, possibly because there is little information available to make interesting (and humorous) reading.
Our tour-guide extracts the minutest details for our delectation, again sprinkled with that undercurrent of wit. And our guide is no armchair chronicler either, he was there in the '50s, doing field work in the cold waters of Lough Ine.

Incidentally we find that some of our Stars worked in other fields as well; mining, surgery, explosives, writing, biology, photography, cinema, genetics - with the usual humourous anecdote, in case we were inclined to fall asleep (unlikely!).

A wonderful, refreshing read - guaranteed to liven up your lungs and your life!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid story of divers and diving, May 17, 2001

By 

William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving (Hardcover)

Trevor Norton presents us with a series of vivid portraits of the strange assortment of characters who pioneered diving. Henri Milne Edwards conducted the first expedition by a submarine biologist in 1844 off Sicily. As early as 1865, the mining engineer Benoit Rouqayrol designed a diving suit with a compressed air cylinder at the back, and a demand valve that supplied oxygen only when the diver sucked on the mouthpiece; but the idea somehow lay forgotten for eighty years.

The engineer Otis Barton designed, built and tested the first bathysphere in 1932, reaching a depth of 3000 feet. Jack Kitching was the first marine ecologist. In the 1930s, Guy Gilpatric, who held a world altitude record when he was only sixteen, invented the very idea of diving for pleasure.

John Scott Haldane worked on improving miners' safety and studied the effects of high pressure on deep-sea divers and of altitude sickness in climbers. His son, the communist and geneticist J.B.S. Haldane, was the first to map the genes on a human chromosome. He also worked on solving the problems of pressure experienced by divers and submariners.

In 1942, Jacques Cousteau's colleague Emile Gagnan re-invented the demand valve, the key to developing the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA). Louis Boutan and Ernest Williamson started underwater photography, popularised by those most photogenic photographers, Hans and Lotte Haas, in their 26 BBC television programmes.

Frederic Dumas, Peter Throckmorton and George Bass initiated underwater archaeology. Throckmorton found lost ships all over the world, most famously a 3,200-year-old wreck at Bodrum on the Aegean coast. He was the first to realise that "it was possible to do scientific archaeology under water." He acutely observed, "What historians had missed, the sea remembered."

Trevor Norton's fascinating book is full of humorous stories and conveys masses of information in a charming and easy style.