THE FISHMEN 



which contribute to the high efficiency of modern sea 

 exploration. 



Underwater photography has become a speciaHzed 

 science. Cameras are dangled on cables, towed on sleds 

 and taken down to the depths in bathyscaphes. Some of 

 these, and the latest deep-sea underwater lamps, will be 

 described in a later chapter. 



Many pioneers in underwater exploration have been 

 credited with the invention of the first self-contained 

 breathing apparatus, including Giovanni BorelH in the 

 seventeenth century and several inventors in recent 

 decades. Lieutenant Philippe Taillez, who has many 

 brilHant inventions to his credit in connection with sea 

 exploration and who forms a distinguished trio of sub- 

 marine explorers with Cousteau and Dumas, was one of 

 the first of the mask divers to devise an efficient breathing 

 tube. He made it from a heavy garden hose, and it had 

 the decided advantage that it could be struck while under 

 water without damaging it or imperilling the life of the 

 diver — it was resilient and therefore simply regained its 

 upright position. Some of the hook shapes are easily 

 fouled by underwater obstacles. The basic principle of 

 the Taillez invention has not been superseded by a more 

 efficient one. 



But even Borelli, over two and a half centuries before 

 Taillez, was not the originator of the self-contained 

 breathing apparatus. The first historical mention of any 

 such invention is by Aristotle (384-322 e.g.). In his 

 De Partibus Animalium he states that divers of his time 

 were provided with instruments of respiration through 

 which they could draw air from above the water, to 

 enable them to remain for some time under the sea. 

 In another work {Problem 32, 5) he says that divers were 

 able to breathe by letting down a vessel which did not 

 get filled with water, but retained the air within it. 

 Pliny (a.d. 23-79) wrote of divers engaged in warfare, 

 who used tubes through which they drew in air and 



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