Halley's diving bell

A diving bell was one ol the earliest methods

invent* ble divers inderwater
It is like a cup turned upside down. As it is

lowered deeper and deeper in the water, the

air inside is compressed from the increasing

water pressure, and more air has to be
pumped in at the top to keep water
from filling the bell The diving bell

invented by Edmund Halley in

1690 was one of the first that
worked well. It was made of wood
covered with lead to make it sink. The
bell was supplied with air by a clever
arrangement of barrels and leather
pipes, and according to Halley. four
men could stay in it on the seabed
at a depth of 60 ft for 90 minutes.

Early diving equipment

In 1797 a German inventor, C. H Klemgert,
invented a very basic diver's suit The upper half
body was enclosed in a son
of the diver's
Augustus Siebe invented a more open
cylinder.
suit, like the one above, in about 1819. It alK

divers to move around more freely. The m

important pan was the heavy metal helmet Air
pumped into the helmet from the surface through a tube,
Lead-soled diving
1810
and used air escaped below the neck The air had to be
boots l
pumped at the right pressure for the depth at which the
diver was working The pressure of thi nen
rig into the helmet

Beebe and the bath\«»phere

In 1934 the American inventor, Char
William Beebe, broke the record for dci
diving in a bathysphere, reaching a depth of
off Bermuda
It in the Allan;
The bathysph
invented by Beebe mn the right' and
his enginei ton It wa
hollow steel ball, less than 5 ft in diam>
00 lb The bath
lowered from a ship heavy chain
Beebe and hi- :ed that
some strange-looking creatui
live in the d.irk ocean depths

I he aqualung
l he aqualung was
invented by the 1 rench
mographer, [a<

i
ousteau, in I'-H 5 For the first

time, divers could s\\ im at deptl

up to 100 It. without bemg attached b)
,i line to a ship I he ail suppl) is carried
on the divei s back in cylinders, ai high
pressure A tube takes the air to a
i ompressed
mouthpiece, and a watertight mask with
(in i ylindei
a glass front covers the eyes and nose
Thanks to the aqualung, an) swimmer
i. ui explore the marvelous world
below the '-in Fa< e ol the watet

llu-voyage ol the Pnteste

The bathyscaphe ("deep boat"), invented b) Belgian scient
was the first deep-diving submersible, ot submarine, whi<

^yL^
•X '.:.*

l!
'
p. uis ol

nav) bought
the ocean

lacques, and naval officer

the Mariana
oceans From inside then
Pi<

I rench
Piccard had the idea for designing
cond bathyscaphe, the rheste II
Don Walsh, descended mon
l"he Trench lies in the Pacific, am
steel ball beneath the craft the)
(a

creatures that live at these depths