Dr. William Beebe and Mr. Barton standing with the bathysphere orb

Bolted inside a steel sphere deep underwater, these explorers made history

To see a “world of life almost as unknown as that of Mars,” two explorers climbed inside the bathysphere and descended into the sea’s cold depths in 1931.

After a dive of a quarter-mile beneath the ocean, we had looked upon a world wholly new to human eyes, as strange as a Martian landscape. (The author to the left, Mr. Barton to the right.)
Photograph from William Beebe
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