Charles William Beebe was an American naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer, and author. He is remembered for the numerous expeditions he conducted for the New York Zoological Society, his deep dives in the Bathysphere, and his prolific scientific writing for academic and popular audiences.
April 1906 cover story of New York World's Sunday magazine written by William Beebe, advertising the Bronx Zoo's diversity of birds
Five species of Tragopan pheasants from William Beebe's book A Monograph of the Pheasants, published 1918–1922
Sargassum in the Sargasso Sea
Volcanoes of western Albemarle/Isabella Island, where William Beebe observed a volcanic eruption in 1925
The Bathysphere was a unique spherical deep-sea submersible which was unpowered and lowered into the ocean on a cable, and was used to conduct a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda from 1930 to 1934. The Bathysphere was designed in 1928 and 1929 by the American engineer Otis Barton, to be used by the naturalist William Beebe for studying undersea wildlife. Beebe and Barton conducted dives in the Bathysphere together, marking the first time that a marine biologist observed deep-sea animals in their native environment. Their dives set several consecutive world records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human. The record set by the deepest of these, to a depth of 3,028 ft (923 m) on August 15, 1934, lasted until it was broken by Barton in 1949 in a vessel called Benthoscope.
The Bathysphere on display at the National Geographic museum in 2009
The instruments aboard the Bathysphere
Bathysphere rigged for diving
