Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss (Hardcover)

by Brad Matsen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A legendary naturalist and a wealthy engineering student come together in the name of science (and glory) in this highly readable look at the discoveries that made William Beebe and Otis Barton international celebrities of the Depression era. Journalist and nature-doc producer Matsen (Planet Ocean, etc.) shows how Barton, who'd long dreamed of undersea adventure, convinced the already-famous Beebe that his diving device will be the key to Beebe's success. Barton would pay for the bathysphere—a four-and-a-half-foot steel ball dangling from a wire rope and ventilated by its occupants waving a palm leaf fan—and thus go along for the ride. The men were personally incompatible, but they made an effective team; from 1929 to 1934, they made more than 20 dives off Bermuda and many improvements in their vehicle. Matsen devotes greater energy to Beebe, noting how his scientific credentials were often questioned—a bon vivant, he wrote for Ladies' Home Journal as well for Science. Matsen also pays tribute to the duo's support team (which Beebe often did not), including wildlife artist Else Bostelmann. From interpersonal conflict to the first radio broadcast from the ocean's depths and the intricate negotiations with National Geographic Society that enabled them to make their last dive in the depths of the Depression, Matsen's account is a thoroughly researched, fluently written addition to the history of science.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Today, it corrodes in a utility yard abutting the Coney Island roller coaster. Seventy years ago, it was front-page news, plunging into the sea off Bermuda. It's the original bathysphere, the brainchild of Otis Barton, who teamed up with zoologist William Beebe. In Matsen's history of their partnership, Barton needed Beebe for his fame and social connections, while Beebe needed Barton for his money, and on that pragmatic basis--they apparently disliked each other--they pioneered deep-sea diving from 1928 to 1934. Their project was dressed up as scientific research, but record-setting, death--defying adventure was its sine qua non. At that time, a few hundred feet was as deep as anyone had gone; then Barton learned that Beebe had a submersible project. It won't work, thought -engineering-educated Barton, who offered instead a steel sphere on a cable. Its operations and occasional malfunctions dramatize Matsen's account, which is further vitalized by the portraits of the protagonists. A marvelous story for maritime mavens. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st ed edition (April 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375422587
• ISBN-13: 978-0375422584
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #552,671 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Exploration of the Depths of the Sea, May 28, 2005

By	David B Richman (Mesilla Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

When I was growing up I had several heroes who sparked my interest in biology and the natural world. Among these were J. Henri Fabre, Edwin Way Teal, Roger Tory Peterson, Raymond Ditmars and of course William Beebe. All of these had their human failings certainly and Beebe was no exception. He was often given to purple prose and hyperbole, his stories did not always match the truth and he sometimes claimed scientific value for acts that were more showmanship than real science. Given all of these (I won't get into his personal life, which was not always admirable, but was his own business); Beebe had the ability to get young people especially interested in the often strange creatures that lived in the rainforest, on islands or the ocean. In his writings he fed the imagination at times when life seemed especially perilous in the depression, World War II and the following Cold War. It was during the last (in 1962) that he died on the island of Trinidad at his research station at Simla. He will always be connected in my mind with the tropical forest and the exploration of the depth of the ocean in the Bathysphere. It is the latter that is the topic of the excellent "Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss" by Brad Matsen.

The second man usually mentioned in any discussion of the Bathysphere is a young wealthy New Yorker named Otis Barton. Matsen mentions him first in this book and it is indeed appropriate that he did so. It was Barton who was instrumental in designing the Bathysphere and it was Barton who paid for it. Beebe and Barton were in many ways rivals for the acclaim that exploration of the depth of the sea would bring, but they buried their acrimony because they needed each other in order to accomplish the task they had set - the descent into the abyss to the depth of a half mile. Despite human flaws, petty jealousies, and oversized egos, the actual dives in the Bathysphere took nerve and I think true courage. It was by no means certain that they would survive the event, despite their careful planning (as was evident by an unmanned descent that ended badly). The story of their adventure, which set up later exploration by Barton, Piccard, and others, is gripping and well told in this book. In it humans for the first time saw living deep sea creatures in all their glory, where as they had only known them from pale and dead or dying specimens brought up in nets from the depths. Whatever Beebe's or Barton's faults the reader can certainly sympathize with them as they view such wonders for the first time in human history!


If you are at all excited by the exploration of our blue planet, you will find this book a great pleasure to read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Descent - a Tour de Force , June 28, 2005

By	Brad Warren (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss is an adventure packed with all the fascination and joy of exploration that Brad Matsen's talent has always promised.

Fittingly, the book begins in Coney Island, a place where many thousands of people have discovered the terror and delight of departing from familiar, safe ground. That's where we first encounter the bathysphere, rusting in storage, a relic that once made possible one of the greatest stories in the history of Twentieth Century science and mass media. As a cunning guide to the rides, Matsen starts where we are. Then he lures us into a mind-bending world.

No human had ever witnessed the mystery and beauty of the deep ocean until the pioneering naturalist William Beebe and the inventor of the bathysphere, Otis Barton, forged their awkward partnership and plunged in during the darkest years of the Great Depression. And unlike other explorers, they brought a worldwide audience along through the new medium of radio. They broadcast live on NBC from the abyss as they sank down in a cramped, 4.5-foot steel ball with quartz-glass windows, hoping the new contraption would hold up against the millions of pounds of pressure that were pushing in around them.

The bathysphere shook and jerked around on the end of thousands of feet of cable, leaked, filled up with the odor of seasickness, and somehow kept the two men alive. Beebe brought back observations of creatures that to this day have never been seen again. He also confirmed theorists' prediction that colors would vanish one by one as depth increases, finishing with a pale, blueish luminescence that finally descends into utter blackness.

Matsen's kinship with Beebe is unmistakable. This is intimate, exciting storytelling, thoroughly researched and rooted in much more than library work. Bravo!


Brad Warren
Seattle, WA

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Re-creates their adventures and discoveries, July 4, 2005

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

The deep-sea expeditions of Otis Barton and William Beebe revolutionized undersea concepts and exploration - and at the height of the Depression years, when money was tight. Beebe was a famous naturalist who became obsessed with oceanography, and had his own research station off Bermuda, along with the support of many industrialists of his times. The younger Barton was heir to a fortune and had his own dreams of deep-sea exploration and adventure. Together the two opened a new world, directly observing new life in the abyss until a bitter dispute left them estranged. Descent: The Heroic Discovery Of The Abyss re-creates their adventures and discoveries.