Otis Barton, Engineer of the Bathysphere
Otis Barton was born June 5, 1899 in New York City. While many are familiar with his colleague William Beebe, featured in the History of Diving Museum’s Beebe’s Lab exhibit, Barton was the engineer behind the most impressive diving expedition of the 1930s.
In 1926, Barton was studying engineering at the University of Columbia when he read about the great naturalist William Beebe and his ambition to be the first to descend into the abyss. Looking over Beebe’s designs, the engineer decided he could not only improve upon them, but fund its construction and help make the expedition a reality.
Barton first created a small scale model of the deep-sea diving machine, which is on display in the History of Diving Museum. By 1928, a full scale model had been constructed: a thick, cast steel sphere 4.75 feet in diameter, with 3-inch thick fused quartz portholes and a 400-pound lid sealed with ten bolts. Barton dubbed the new device the “Bathysphere,” from the Greek word “bathus,” meaning deep, and “sphere” which referred to the submersible’s shape, the strongest in nature to resist pressure.
Several unmanned test dives were performed, including one wherein a porthole burst, causing the Bathysphere to flood. After testing, Barton and Beebe successfully completed a number of dives to varying depths. In 1934, they made headlines around the globe when they descended to a record-shattering 3,028 feet, or 923 meters, within the Bathysphere. There, the two men sat in the abyss, in complete darkness, with nothing but a metal cable and a thin telephone line connecting them to the world above. They remained at that depth for a mere five minutes, as it was the very limit of the ship’s cable, and the captain deemed it unsafe to remain any longer. The descent and ascent themselves each took over an hour.
At this time in history, marine biology was mainly done by dragging long nets through the water, hauling them to the surface, and examining the specimens dredged up from the seafloor. William Beebe began a shift to study marine organisms in their natural environment. Barton and Beebe became the first humans to see many creatures, such as the anglerfish, alive in their natural habitat. Beebe dictated detailed observations through the telephone line to the surface, describing the animals he saw in the depths off the coast of Bermuda. His descriptions were then illustrated by artist Else Bostelmann. Barton and Beebe’s expedition gave the world its first glimpse at many living deep sea creatures.
In 1938, Barton released his film Titans of the Deep, a heavily dramatized retelling of the Bathysphere expedition and the people involved. After World War II, Barton completed his new creation the Benthoscope, which could dive even deeper than the Bathysphere. In 1949, he once again shattered records by completing a solo dive to 4,500 feet (1,372 meters). This remains the deepest dive completed by a cable-suspended, unpowered submersible.
Inventors like Barton paved the way for deeper, more daring dives. Today, we have reached the very deepest point in the sea, at 36,000 feet (11,000 meters). Many modern submersibles still use a design similar to the Bathysphere: a thick, metal sphere. They are typically self-sufficient, with mechanisms to control descent and ascent, rather than relying on a cable tethered to a ship. The sphere remains the strongest shape to withstand high pressure, and Otis Barton incorporated this principle into his designs.
When you visit the History of Diving Museum, you will see an exhibit of Beebe’s lab that includes Otis Barton’s original scale model of the Bathysphere, along with footage from the pair’s historic dive in August of 1934. In addition, you can read more about their adventures in Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss, or, for young readers, in Otis & Will Discover the Deep and Into the Deep, The Life of Naturalist and Explorer William Beebe. These books as well as other unique items are available in the Museum Store or online.
