Word: aqualung
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Dates: during 1953-1953
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...aqualung, of which Cousteau was co-inventor, has opened to the "men fish" depths which only the imagination of Jules Verne has explored before. "The Silent World" opens them to the reader as well
Cousteau and his companions are the forerunners of a new era of undersea exploration. Using the remarkable aqualung, a light apparatus which supplies the diver with compressed air, they were able to plunge to depths of over three hundred feet, where the pressure is capable of crushing a submarine. Through Costeau's engrossing account and his starting photos, the reader can share in some measure the fascination of the curious realm of silence--a world of unknown colors, of sunken ships and playful octopi...
From one danger, however, even the aqualung could not secure the divers--the drunken elation induced by nitrogen gas under the tremendous pressures of the depths. In the intoxication of the "zone of rapture", the diver may lose control, as one of the group did, and tear the aqualung from his back as an impulsive gift to a passing fish...
...Silent World, a French navy captain named Jacques-Yves Cousteau, inventor of the "aqualung," describes his underwater adventures with a scientist's care and a poet's feeling...