Otis Barton

Frederick Otis Barton, Jr. ( born June 5, 1899 in New York; † 15 April 1992) was an American deep-sea diver and inventor.

Deep-sea research

Barton was born in New York. The inheritance of a paternal grandfather gave him financial independence, which enabled him to devote himself to his technical inventions. While studying engineering at Columbia University in 1926, he heard of the plans Charles William Beebe to develop a deep-sea diving equipment. Barton was himself divers (since 1917), was interested in zoology and biology and was also with such ideas. Both teamed up after Beebe was ready to after the first reservations. 1928 both took the first experiments with the bathysphere, a steel deep sea diving bell, which was devised mainly by Barton. Beebe had initially thought of a drum-shaped hollow body, but in this relationship clearly more specialized as an engineer Barton was able to convince him that a bullet would withstand the low pressure better. In 1930 the bathysphere first came before the Bermuda islands for use and ultimately reached the record depth of more than 400 meters. On 15 August 1934 she reached there with 923 meters of a new low record, which was set at a depth of around 1,370 meters of Barton himself at a diving trip in the Pacific until 1948.

Exploration of the tropical rainforest

In addition to the deep sea Barton also explored the tropical rain forest. In the 1950s he developed a cableway similar system to take pictures in the top region of the forest. Still in 1978, he worked, almost eighty years old, in the testing of " Jungle Spaceship " (jungle spaceship ) with, an airship lightweight, shots were possible with the in flight low over the trees.

Filmography, Bibliography

The diving trips with Beebe off Bermuda were filmed and put in the documentation " Titans of the Deep " in 1938 in the cinemas. In this 47 -minute black and white film Barton, Beebe and some members of their team are to be seen; Barton himself also directed, was a cameraman ( inter alia, in the diving bell ) and acted as producer.

Literary Barton is as the author of the books The World Beneath the Sea (1953) and Adventure on Land and Under the Sea (1954 ) emerged.