A JOURNEY TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN TOLD THROUGH HISTORY
The Frontier Below recounts the 2,000 year history of the human quest to go deeper underwater. Starting in antiquity, with pearl divers and sponge divers, it reveals many of the myths surrounding early diving, then explains how, during the Renaissance, people got serious about finding ways of breathing underwater. Maynard details the improvements to diving bells as they evolved over 400 years, again revealing many misconceptions which have been held about pioneers such as astronomer Sir Edmond Halley.
Diving helmets and diving suits were around for well over a century before English brothers John and Charles Deane developed the iconic copper diving helmet and ‘standard diving dress’ which transformed the way people worked underwater at a time in history when it was needed—the Industrial Revolution. With people working deeper new problems arose and we entered the 20th century with scientists trying to discover ways to overcome the crippling ‘bends’, and inventors attempting protect divers with iron ‘atmospheric diving suits’.
In terms of the distance from the surface to the deepest point of the ocean, by the 1920s humans had travelled less than two percent of the way, but all that was about to change.
While explaining the science behind the inventions and technology, Maynard concentrates on telling the stories of the people who instigated the breakthroughs that opened up the underwater world. Jacques Cousteau helped invent the Aqualung scuba system during World War II. Soon after he became involved with Auguste Piccard, a Swiss inventor who had built an ‘underwater balloon’ meant to take people straight down and up, much like a hot air balloon but in reverse. The disagreements between Piccard and Cousteau led to a rivalry that resulted in competing French and Italian bathyscaphes reaching depths of the two, three and four kilometres in the 1950s. When the Americans became involved, they sponsored one of the bathyscaphes in an effort to study deep sea sound channels for their nuclear submarines. This led to the deepest point of the ocean being reached nine years before people walked on the moon.
We now have the technology to exploit the seabed and mine the rare earth minerals and other resources found there. The Frontier Below uses history to bring awareness to the opportunities and threats we face in the future as a result of our ability to enter a world that was, until recently, an alien one.
Many books have been written about the history of climbing Mount Everest, reaching the North and South Poles, or landing on the moon. In The Frontier Below, Jeff Maynard presents enthralling account of discovery that takes the reader into the history of reaching the bottom of the ocean.
ANZEC Member - Jeff K. Maynard
Jeff Maynard is an author and documentary-maker passionate about recording little known aspects of Australia’s history. He commenced diving in 1987 and shortly after began researching the history of diving. In 1992 he became interested in the story of the recovery of eight tons of gold from the ‘RMS Niagara’ during World War Two. He located the surviving members of the crew and the lost film that was taken during the salvage. His books on diving history include ‘Niagara’s Gold’ and ‘Divers in Time’. A former President of the Historical Diving Society – Australia Pacific, Jeff edits the Society’s quarterly magazine, ‘Classic Diver’. Jeff has also spent many years researching and locating the lost records of Australian polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. He is the author ‘Wings of Ice’ and 'The Unseen Anzac'. Jeff's third book on Sir Hubert Wilkins, 'Crossing Antarctica - The Wyatt Earp Story' will be published in 2018.
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