Science: Deepest Divers

The deep-diving record went back to France last week. At 10:09 one morning, on the Atlantic 160 miles off Dakar, the French navy's bathyscaphe FNRS 3* submerged. Three hours later she settled on the bottom, 4,050 meters (13,287 ft.) down, beating Professor Auguste Piccard's record (TIME, Oct. 12) by 900 meters.

The FNRS 3, designed and built by the French navy at Toulon, is much like Piccard's Italian-built bathyscaphe, the Trieste. Her submarine-shaped hull, filled with gasoline (lighter than water) supports a sphere two meters in diameter with stainless-steel walls 3.5 in. thick. The sphere is the only part intended to resist pressure. In it huddle the crew, surrounded by jampacked instruments and apparatus.

The voyage to the bottom of the Atlantic was uneventful enough to satisfy the most apprehensive bystander. Every 30 minutes, Lieut. Commander Georges Houot and Engineer Pierre-Henri Willm reported by an ultrasonic signaling device: "Tout va bien" (all is well). At 3:23 p.m. a patrolling airplane saw the yellow steel hull break above the surface.

"Everything went according to plan," reported Captain Houot. "We even found time to have lunch [sandwiches and Muscadet wine] on our way down."

When they reached the bottom, the officers looked around with the beams of their 1,000-watt searchlights. "We came down on a bed of slimy sand," said Engineer Willm. "We started the motors and cruised a bit, but the water quickly became troubled. At one point we sighted a loft. sharklike creature. During most of our descent we were surrounded by myriads of luminous points, and we distinguished some weird polyps with translucent tentacles."

Captain Houot is confident that the FNRS 3 could have dived much deeper; he would like to take her into the deepest places in the world's oceans, such as the 34,000-ft. trench between New Zealand and the Tonga Islands. The FNRS 3 is theoretically able to stand the pressure of 52,000 ft. of sea water, but for the sake of prudence, a new and stronger bathyscaphe would be required for this ultimate dive.

Old Professor Piccard, in Brussels, had no direct comment on losing the depth record. Though 70, he has not turned in his deep-diving badge, and the Trieste, he said, is being outfitted for new adventures. He is also busy designing a mysterious "mescoscaphe," which he refused to describe.