Book Review -- Descent, Brad Matsen

Descent is the story of William Beebe's and Otis Barton's revolutionary exploration of the deep sea in the 1930s. I picked it up with memories of Beebe's exploits still locked in my mind from 4th grade history class. After studying about them, I ran home from school, picking up the largest cardboard box I could find and dragging it along. I then spent hours sitting inside, pretending to re-live Beebe's exploits. But even at the height of my hero worship, I didn't quite get what Beebe and Barton had done. They had a great adventure, yes, but was it really much of an achievement? I mean, all they did was sit inside a steel ball while it was raised and lowered on a cable. Obviously, there were a few gaps in my understanding. It's taken several decades but Descent finally filled those gaps in.

Long before Beebe ever heard of the bathysphere, he was a world-renowned ornithologist who made numerous helmet dives in the tropics, fell in love with the ocean and then made an abrupt career change -- with no formal education in marine science. Barton, his all-but-forgotten partner, was a rich kid who idolized him from afar. But he had what Beebe wanted -- a workable plan for a vessel that would take them into the ocean depths. The two men were formally introduced and formed an immediate partnership that would change deep-sea exploration forever.

The author, Brad Matsen, does a great job painting a picture of the life of explorers in the 1930s, trying to raise money and keep funds flowing during the Depression. He does an even better job describing the technical problems Barton and Beebe faced in building and operating the bathysphere. No one had experience with anything like this before. To withstand the water pressure thousands of feet beneath the surface, how large and thick would the portholes have to be? How could a watertight seal be made between the portholes and the sphere? Was there a cable in the world strong enough to raise and lower it? How could the cable be kept from tangling? And was there even a winch that could lift all three tons of it? None of this was known for sure.

When finally ready, Beebe and Barton sat inside the bathysphere on the deck of a ship covering their ears while workers outside spent long minutes hammering the metal hatch shut. Once underwater, they fanned palm leaves over trays of chemicals to remove carbon dioxide from the air. Based on how they felt, they guestimated when and how much oxygen to release into the bathysphere to keep their air breathable. \All the while, pressure was constantly forcing water into the cramped space.

In the end, Beebe and Barton saw and described sea creatures no one before them ever had ever seen. Their  undrewater trips were carried live on radio to a waiting nation, starved for heroes and escape from economic hardship. Unfortunately, though, neither of them attained what they had truly hoped for. Beebe was almost universally scorned in oceanographic circles as little more than a circus showman, while Barton never rose above the status of second banana.

Descent is a wonderful book and I can't wait to read it again. In the meantime, who knows, I might have to go out there and find myself another big old cardboard box.

Descent was published in 2005 by Pantheon Books.