subject: What Is A Bathysphere [print this page] A bathysphere is a hollow steel ball in which scientists go deep into the ocean to learn what life is like there. A bathysphere must be very strong and very heavy. It must be very strong because when it goes very far down the weight of all the water above it, plus the pressure of the air above that, would crush most hollow things. It must be very heavy. The scientists want to go down as far as possible. The first bathysphere was built in 1930 by a man named Otis Barton, and he made the first descent in it with Dr. William Beebe, who has been the greatest underwater explorer. Barton's bathysphere was a ball made of steel 1 VJ inches thick. It weighed 5,000 pounds. The inside of it was only 54 inches, or AV2 feet. In this space two men had to huddle, along with all their scientific instruments. There were two windows in the ball, made of fused (melted) quartz, the strongest transparent substance known. Two tanks of oxygen were carried inside the bathysphere, so that the men could breathe. The bathysphere was lowered from a ship, and later lifted to the surface, by a steel cable % inch thick. Beebe and Barton made many descents in this bathysphere. The deepest dive they made was 3,028 feet, or more than half a mile. The farther down they went, the less light there was. At 2,000 feet, the human eye could not detect the faintest glimmer of light. They photographed the fishes and other living things with powerful searchlights. Other bathyspheres were made, much like the first one, but able to go deeper. In 1954, two French naval officers reached a depth of more than 11,000 feet in a bathyscaphe. This is a bathysphere attached to a boat-shaped container of gasoline that makes it heavier. To rise, they let out the gasoline and make the bathyscaphe lighter.
