But Beebe knew that examining creatures
brought up in nets was a poor substitute for
first-hand observation of live animals in their
habitats. He was convinced that the Gl a disfen’s
nets captured only the smaller, slow-moving
creatures and that there was much more to
be seen down below. He longed for a way to
descend into the sea himself.
A year later, in 1930, Beebe and engineer
Otis Barton developed a deep-sea submersible
called a bathysphere. Up till then, humans had
only descended a few hundred feet beneath the
sea in heavily armored suits that made observa-
tion difficult. Bolted inside the bathysphere, a
hollow steel ball less than five feet in diameter,
Beebe and Barton could go down thousands of
feet. The bathysphere protected the men, not
only from drowning, but from the pressure of
the ocean’s depths, which would have collapsed
their lungs. Lowered by a steel cable from a
barge, the bathysphere carried oxygen tanks
and enabled Beebe to communicate with the
surface ship by a telephone line.
With the barge rolling over the ocean
swells, Else steadied herself as Beebe, descend-
ing in the bathysphere, reported what he saw
to another scientist, Gloria Hollister, who
took detailed notes while listening on the tele-
phone. Colors faded quickly in the depths of
the ocean, until by 2,000 feet “the world was
forever black.” Beebe excitedly described see-
ing “a shower of sparks and glowing, colored
dots moving in the dark water.” Turning on
the searchlight revealed a school of hatchet fish
surrounding the bathysphere. When Beebe
switched the light off again, the bioluminescent
fish sparkled “like constellations.”
Transparent as the
water itself, young eels
flitted by with only
their shimmering
eyes revealing their
presence. Clouds of
flying snails fluttered
through the current on
flapping wings. Sharp-
toothed sea dragons,
trailing bioluminescent
lights from their chins, cut
through the dark water.
Once the bathy-
sphere was raised to the
surface, Beebe imme-
diately joined Else in
an “artistic huddle.”
As Else quickly put his
descriptions to paper using
watercolor, gouache, and
pencil, Beebe provided fresh
details of what he’d seen.
Back in the studio, they’d
spend hours on Else’s illustra-
tions, discussing the details of
a fish’s billowing fins or the
semicircles of intense purple surroundingthe
photophores of a five-lined constellationfish.
In 1934, Beebe publishedanaccount
of his deepest dive in an article“HalfMile
Down” in the National GeographicMagazine.
Else’s illustrations accompaniedthearticle
in a feature called “Carnivoresofa Lightless
World.” Her paintings of deep-seacreatures
stunned and amazed the magazine’sreaders.
One image showed a great gulpereel,withIT’S A WHOLE NEW
WORLD DOWN HERE.By examining a f ish’s
stomach contents, Else
could discover much about
its sometimes surprising
behavior habits.