THE DEEPEST DAYS

by Robert Stenuit ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 1965

Belgian aquanaut Stenuit's account of experimental undersea stations must inevitably be compared with Jacques Cousteau's magnificent World Without Sun (p. 1017). Content aside, Cousteau is a mandarin prose stylist of iridescent sensitivity, and One savors his technicolor scarves of description. Stenuit writes as a tub-thumping Columbus of the seafloor, a deep-sea visionary of protected fish crops, food farms and mines. Cousteau recorded a thirty-day underwater sojourn at 36 feet in the Red Sea in a spectacularly luxurious ""village"" (brandy, French cuisine, hifi tapes of Mozart). Stenuit, assisted by Jon Lindbergh (son of Charles), made a two-man descent off the Grand Bahama Bank to demonstrate the feasibility of permanent underwater stations which would allow an eight-hour working day. Meanwhile, submerged at 436 feet two days in a kind of inflated tent, they established a world's record for endurance at that depth. This does not impress Stenuit, though. It proves only that better equipment and sophisticated techniques are necessary for the practical exploitation of the sea undersea devices to match the space equipment the government is sending to the moon. He's convincing.

Pub Date: March 16, 1965

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward-McCann

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION