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chapter 10

Exploring Underwater Worlds: Diving in the Late Seventeenth-/Early Eighteenth-Century British Empire

Rebekka von Mallinckrodt

1 Boyle’s Dilemma

A history of the senses cannot be written detached from social relations and value systems, as Constance Classen wrote in 2012: “To understand the sensory life of a society one must look at the cultural values that inform its ways of sensing the world.”1 These hierarchies concern not only the distribution and evaluation of manual and intellectual labor in a society that in an extreme case treats slaves as a “living tool[s],”2 but also the hierarchy of the senses itself. In addition to those gradations usually based on metaphysics and theology that ranked sight, for instance – as detached and as the sense located higher up in the body – above the sense of touch, which develops earlier in childhood and is distributed over the entire body,3 concrete historical experiences must be taken into account. In the case of diving, it was the rise of the British Empire that – from an English perspective – first brought an increased necessity of underwater exploration but also heightened interest in both the submarine world and the proprioception of divers, whose self-perception was sharpened by the change in their environment, i.e., the water pressure, as they entered this new “sensescape.” In the period from 1660 to 1720 that is examined more

1 Constance Classen, The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2012), xii.

2 Ibid., 108.3 Danijela Kambaskovic and Charles T. Wolfe, “The Senses in Philosophy and Science: From

the Nobility of Sight to the Materialism of Touch,” in Herman Roodenburg, ed., A Cultural History of the Senses in the Renaissance (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 107–25, here 108f., 117, 121; Elizabeth D. Harvey, “Introduction. The ‘Sense of all Senses,’” in idem., ed., Sensible Flesh. On Touch in Early Modern Culture (Philadelphia, pa: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 1–21, here 1, 4, 7, 11, 13.

* I would like to thank Elizabeth Bredeck for the translation of my essay.

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closely here using English sources,4 empirical experience concerning the sub-marine world increased and mastery of the underwater world became itself a field of imperial competition between nations. According to Margaret Deacon, it was precisely the years around 1660 and 1670 that were particularly fruitful for ocean sciences. During the political stability after the restoration of the monarchy and after the founding of the Royal Society in 1662, practical interest in the exploration of the seas was especially strong and the groundwork was laid for later research both in and beyond the Royal Society.5

Still, a fundamental problem concerning the sensory practices and modes of perception of divers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries concerns the sources: the people who dove usually did not write about their experiences, and those who wrote about diving usually brought no experience to bear – at least not in the literal sense of immersing themselves in water. Thus, in 1670 Robert Boyle (1627–91) reported in his “Relations about the Bottom of the Sea” on his conversations with professional divers:

… he [the diver] was surprized to find in several places a certain sort of fruit, that he knew not what to make of, for he found them of a slimy and soft consistence, about the bigness of apples, but not so round in shape; and when he brought them up into the air, as he did many of them, they soon began to shrink up like old rotten apples, but were much harder, and more shrivelled. … One that made a considerable stay about Manar … answered me, that he learned from the divers, that in some places there-abouts, there grows at the bottom pretty store of a certain sort of trees, bearing leaves almost like those of laurel, as also a certain fruit; but of what virtue, or other use, he had not the curiosity to enquire.6

This almost poetic description of an undersea world with fruits that resem-bled apples and tree-like plants differed markedly from the contemporary

4 For this purpose, in addition to the Philosophical Transactions, the following databases were searched for the period of 1660–1720 using key words and full-text research: Early English Books Online (eebo), Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ecco), and the 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers. The latter contains digitized English newspapers and pamphlets (1,270 titles in all) from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from the collection of the clergyman Charles Burney (1757–1817).

5 Margaret Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 1650–1900. A Study of Marine Science, 2nd ed. (Alder-shot: Ashgate, 1997), 73f, 84, 154.

6 Robert Boyle, “Relations about the Bottom of the Sea” (1670), in The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, Thomas Birch, ed., 6 vols. (London: J. & F. Rivington, 1772), 3: 349–54 and 780–81, here 781.



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speculations of an Athanasius Kircher (1602–80)7 or a Thomas Burnett (ca. 1635–1715),8 who described the ocean floor as an abyss and a desolate ruin, a subterranean system of canals and dangerous depths. In contrast, Boyle’s ac-count was characterized not only by its positive emotional tone, but also by concrete empirical experience and even a pronounced sensuality that involved sight as well as touch, as the slimy fruits that later dried into hard, rough kernels were carefully handled. Unlike Burnett and Kircher, Boyle did not speculate about the undersea world but instead tried to consult as many divers as pos-sible about their experiences; the divers, in turn, tried to make sense of their perceptions by comparing and integrating them into terrestrial categories such as “apples/fruits” or “laurel/trees.” In Boyle’s report, the seabed seemed to be an idyllic place, a locus amoenus that even during storms lay there like a calm secluded paradise, as another diver related, using not only his sight but prob-ably also sensing the movement of his own body in the water:

… that the wind being stiff, so that the waves were manifestly six or seven feet high [ca. 2 meters] above the surface of the water, he found no sign of it at 15 fathom deep [ca. 30 meters]; but if the blasts continued long, then it moved the mud at the bottom, and made the water thick and dark. And I remember he told me, … that staying once at the bottom of the sea very long, where it was considerably deep, he was amazed at his return to the upper parts of the water to find a storm there, which he dreamt not of, and which was raised in his absence, having taken no notice of it below, and having left the sea calm enough when he descended into it.9

These reports about a place of unusual stillness and beauty that contained sunken treasures, pearls and corals had only one flaw: they were second- and thirdhand accounts. Though Boyle tried his best to make his informants, whom he described but never mentioned by name, seem as experienced, believable and trustworthy as possible,10 this constant emphasizing of their credibility shows that Boyle – as he was well aware – was on the defensive here. For in 1670 firsthand experiments and eyewitness accounts were the new scientific standard. The very first paragraph of his essay thus began with a justification:

7 Athanasius Kircher, Mundus subterraneus (Amsterdam: Jansson & Weyerstraet, 1664–65).8 Thomas Burnett, Telluris theoria sacra (London: Typis R.N.; Impensis Gault. Kettilby, 1681).9 Boyle, “Relations about the Bottom of the Sea,” 353.10 Ibid., 350–54.




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I do not pretend to have visited the bottom of the sea; but since none of the naturalists whose writings I have yet met with, have been there any more than I; and it is great rarity in those cold parts of Europe to meet with any men at all, that have had once the boldness, the occasion, the opportunity, and the skill to penetrate into those concealed and danger-ous recesses of nature, much less to make any stay there; I presume it will not be unpleasant, if … I recite in this place what I have learned by enquiry from those persons, that among the many navigators and travel-lers I have had opportunity to converse with, were the likeliest to give me good information about these matters.11

Even so, Boyle’s own dissatisfaction and skepticism vis-à-vis his informants in-creased. Merchants, professional divers, sailors, and ships’ captains conducted investigations neither as regularly nor as precisely as he deemed necessary. In practice, they had never asked themselves certain questions, while others were more of a hindrance than a help when doing their work, which was not research but rather pearl diving, ship wrecking or ship repairing.12 Their intel-lectual reflections on their observations also left a lot to be desired in Boyle’s view, as he remarked elsewhere:

If observations about diving were made by philosophers and mathemati-cians, or, at least, intelligent men …, we should perhaps have an account of what happens to men under water, differing enough from the common reports.13

Divers felt the cold in the ocean depths,14 they sensed the movement of the water when they were affected by currents, they saw or could not see due to swirling sand, they touched objects with different textures, and they sensed the lack of air, grew drowsy, and sometimes fainted, i.e., they endured many of

11 Ibid., 349.12 Ibid., 350, 354, 780f.; Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seven-

teenth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 262.13 Robert Boyle, “An Hydrostatical Discourse, Occasioned by the Objections of the Learned

Dr. Henry More” (1672), in Birch, ed., Works, 3: 596–628, here 618, 621; quoted from Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 264f. See also ibid., 262.

14 This and the following Robert Boyle, “Of the Temperature of the Submarine Regions, As to Heat and Cold (1671),” in Birch, ed., Works, 3: 342–49, here 344f.; Boyle, “Relations about the Bottom of the Sea,” 350, 353f., 781; Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 120; Thomas Birch, The history of the Royal Society of London for improving of natural knowledge, from its first rise … 4 vols. (London: A. Millar, 1756–57), here 1: 400 (1664).



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the physical sensations passively in the quite literal sense of being unable to change or prevent them. This of course may also have been due to their role as “measurement instruments,” a role assigned to them by the scientists, since depicting them as too independent would have made the non-diving scientists seem superfluous in this collective form of knowledge production. But that divers’ accounts Boyle cited as proof of water pressure were also quoted by other authors to support the opposite view illustrates the wide range of inter-pretations and partially explains his frustration.15

Still, Boyle, forty-three years old at the time, never made a descent himself. Boyle’s dilemma reflected not so much a personal problem (he had suffered a stroke in July 1670 and was in generally poor health)16 as a general trend among scientists. Thus, in 1664 Sir Robert Moray also received reports on work in div-ing bells from a certain Mr. Maule who led recovery efforts.17 And in 1725 in the first book dedicated exclusively to ocean sciences (avant la lettre), Luigi Marsigli still complained of his dependence on seamen’s accounts.18 What is more, European sailors and scientists had to cope with the fact that numer-ous indigenous people were apparently more experienced and also more apt to explore the underwater world – even without the help of diving bells (sec-tion two). Why personal immersion in the water still remained problematic for British scientists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, and how they solved this dilemma, will be discussed in the third section.

2 Empire and Diving

Increasing interest in the underwater world went hand in hand with the rise of the empire, since the more ships were sent overseas and returned with riches to the British Isles, the more often boats were lost due to storms, capture, or warfare. Yet especially in the case of disasters near the coast, people were unwilling to simply accept the loss of sunken goods. As a result, recovery at-tempts increased, and hence the interest in diving was at first not scientifically but economically motivated. At the time, the connection between diving and

15 Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 260–62.16 Ibid., 152–55, 248.17 Birch, The History of the Royal Society, l: 399–401 (1664).18 James Delbourgo, “Underwater-Works: Voyages and Visions of the Submarine,” Endeav-

or 31 (2007): 115–20, here 116; Louis Ferdinand Comte de Marsilli, Histoire physique de la mer … (Amsterdam: aux depens de la compagnie, 1725), 2, 11; Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 176.




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the reclamation of sunken goods was considered so close that in 1745 the Brit-ish physician Dennis de Coetlogon wrote: “This Art owes its first Invention to Avarice and Greediness of Gain, since it is chiefly practised upon Wrecks, to recover the Riches which the Sea has swallowed …”19 However, he went on to note, it was the spread of diving bells that first provided a new impetus for this practice:

Before the Invention of these useful and curious Machines, which serve to keep the Diver a considerable Time under Water, and carry him to a very great Depth, Diving was more dangerous, and not near so beneficial, as it has proved since; but as the Diver could not be kept long under Wa-ter, and did not dare to venture so far, none but Trifles could be dived for; but at present, the heaviest Things are brought up from the Bottom of the Sea, such as Cannon, Chests of Gold and Silver, which by Means of those Machines a Diver has Time to rummage a Wreck for; …20

Accounts from before the mid-eighteenth century show that salvage operations were not as simple as Coetlogon depicted them, and that the use of divers and diving bells was preceded by a lengthy phase of trial and error that only proved increasingly effective in the second half of the seventeenth century. The Brit-ish drew on the experience of the Spaniards, who had worked with diving bells as early as the sixteenth century.21 At the same time, they were also receiving reports about salvage and diving operations from Dieppe, Toulon, Genoa, Göteborg, and Hormus.22 Yet it was only in 1665 that several cannons were suc-cessfully retrieved from ships of the Spanish Armada known to have sunk off the English coast in 1588. However, the effort involved was hardly worth the ex-pense. One year before the publication of Boyle’s report (1669), the instrument maker Ralph Greatorex (ca. 1625–75) had made a descent to demonstrate the safety of such an experiment, but also the limits of the human body’s physical resilience. Greatorex thus reported that he could dive to a depth of 10 fathoms (ca. 18 meters) with his diving bell model “and stay there with ease enough as long as he pleased, going up and down, stooping and working; but at a much

19 Dennis de Coetlogon, An Universal History of Arts and Sciences: … The Whole extracted from the best Authors in all Languages … 2 vols. (London: Printed and sold by John Hart, 1745), 1: 875.

20 Ibid., 1: 876.21 Delbourgo, “Underwater-Works,” 115.22 Birch, The History of the Royal Society, 1: 396 (1664); Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 120.



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greater depth he found an intolerable pressure.”23 By 1653, he had already de-signed diving devices, and in the 1660s he tested his diving bell in connection with the construction of a pier in Tangier harbor.24 In 1671 a table showing the air pressure in diving bells was published in the Philosophical Transactions; the table was intended to make the work of divers easier, and its publication suggests that the use of diving bells was relatively widespread.25 In the 1680s, the shipbuilder William Phips tried to salvage the Concepción, a Spanish ship that had sunk off the coast of Hispaniola in 1659. Charles ii (r. 1660–85) out-fitted him for this venture, but it ended in failure (1683). A second attempt funded by James ii (r. 1685–1688) likewise failed. Hence, it was thanks only to Phips’s determination and the financial support of the Duke of Albemarle that on the third attempt, in 1687, treasures valued at around £300,000 were retrieved from a depth of six to seven fathoms (ca. 11 to 13 meters).26 According to James Delbourgo, the Duke of Albemarle had accepted the governorship of Jamaica primarily because he hoped to make a fortune through recovering sunken ships.27 Yet Phips’s success rested not on the diving bell, but on divers who had been sent from the Bermudas and Jamaica to the site of the wreck.28 Based on the tremendous profit from the recovery effort, many societies were

23 Birch, The History of the Royal Society, 2: 363 (1669). See also Lisa Jardine, Ingenious Pur-suits. Building the Scientific Revolution (London: Little, Brown, 1999), 214.

24 Birch, The History of the Royal Society, 1: 370 (1664); Sarah Bendall, “Greatorex, Ralph (ca. 1625–1675),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, Jan 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com.460264923.erf.sbb .spk-berlin.de/view/article/11365, accessed 19 May 2015].

25 “A Table Shewing, to What Degree Air is Compressible in Sea-Water, at the Depth of Any Number of Feet from 1. to 33. Feet or 5 ½ Fathom, and Thence for Any Number of 5 ½ Fathoms, or 33. Feet, to 324 ½ Fathoms or 1947 Feet,” Philosophical Transactions 6 (1671): 2192–95, here 2193: “And that these Trials may not be thought to have been made out of meer [sic] Curiosity, they will, by considering and practical men, be found Useful for those, who have occasion to dive for recovering things lost in water, forasmuch as by those Experiments they may afore hand know, to what depth they may, when they sink in the Diving Bell or other fit Instruments, endure the Compression of the Air for respiration; as also, how they may furnish themselves with Air in a fit vessel for supply.”

26 Delbourgo, “Underwater-Works,” 115.27 James Delbourgo, “Divers Things. Collecting the World under Water,” History of Science 49

(2011): 149–85, here 149.28 Delbourgo, “Underwater-Works,” 115; Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barba-

dos, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica …, 2 vols. (London: Printed by B.M. for the Author, 1707), 1: lxxx, The Introduction. The abilities of pearl divers in Batavia had become well known in England as early as 1668. R[obert] Moray, “Answers To Some of the Queries, Which Were Recommended by Sir R[obert] Moray to Sir Phil[iberto] Vernatti, President



http://www.oxforddnb.com.460264923.erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/view/article/11365

http://www.oxforddnb.com.460264923.erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/view/article/11365


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subsequently founded in England that sought to gain sole permission in certain regions – the Caribbean in particular – to dive for treasure, including the coast-al waters between the island of Mull and the west coast of Scotland where can-nons of the Spanish Armada had already been successfully retrieved.29 Here, in 1688 divers aided by diving bells were lowered up to sixty feet deep in the water (ca. 18 meters), sometimes spending an hour on the ocean floor and recovering gold chains, money and other valuable objects, items that nevertheless fell far short of fulfilling the great expectations. This did not stop the boom, however, even though investments in diving machines and salvaging shipwrecks were considered risky.30 In 1698, John William, who had earned a royal patent for the invention of a “diving engine,” invited his shareholders to the Globe Tav-ern in St. Martin in the Fields to elect an executive committee and discuss the summer’s expeditions.31 In 1718 in Garraway’s Coffee House, the distribution of profits from the Spanish expedition for diving from the year 1692 was speci-fied.32 In 1720 interested parties were sought via newspaper announcement for a society that with the help of a royal grant was to search for shipwrecks between the twelfth and twenty-seventh parallel.33 The same announcement was used to advertise for capable divers. In addition, countless demonstrations took place in the various waters of the kingdom of diving bells and “machines” that could also be borrowed for a fee.34 According to these sources, it was not only the scientists of the Royal Society who tested diving machines and human

in Java Major, were Left Un-Answered of Those That are Found in the History of the R[oyal]. Society, p. 158, &c.,” Philosophical Transactions 3 (1668): 863.

29 Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands, 1: lxxx (introduction).30 Delbourgo, “Underwater-Works,” 115; Delbourgo, “Divers Things,” 170f.31 Flying Post or The Post Master (London, England), June 25, 1698–June 28, 1698; Issue 488,

Advertisements. See also on the following meetings ibid., July 2, 1698–July 5, 1698; Issue 491, Advertisements.

32 London Gazette (London, England), May 27, 1718–May 31, 1718; Issue 5646; Daily Courant (London, England), June 14, 1718; Issue 5194.

33 Daily Courant (London, England), November 8, 1720; Issue 5944; ibid., November 15, 1720; Issue 5949.

34 Flying Post or The Post Master (London, England), September 17, 1698–September 20, 1698; Issue 524; Post Boy (1695) (London, England), September 17, 1698–September 20, 1698; Issue 536; Post Man and the Historical Account (London, England), Septem-ber 17, 1698– September 20, 1698; Issue 516 (same); Evening Post (1709) (London, Eng-land), September 6, 1715–September 8, 1715; Issue 950; British Weekly Mercury (London, England), August 24, 1715–August 31, 1715; Issue 531; St. James’s Evening Post (London, Eng-land), August 25, 1715–August 27, 1715; Issue 38 (same); Daily Courant (London, England), August 27, 1715; Issue 4319; Weekly Packet (London, England), March 26, 1720–April 2, 1720; Issue 404.



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diving skills but also shipbuilders, brassmiths and soldiers. After members of the Royal Society began to turn away from practical questions following the 1687 publication of Newton’s Principia and focus increasingly on abstract sciences,35 it was these practitioners who then became the principal testers of new methods; unfortunately, however, they did not leave as many sources as the scientists before and after them.

Well into the eighteenth century, diving remained a risky business that could destroy the sensory organs and even life itself. Reports of divers whose eyes, ears, and noses filled with blood due to water pressure,36 whose eardrums burst or who coughed up blood, who endured eye infections37 or died after too deep or extensive dives, were not unusual:

A noted Diver, not long since, in 13 Fathom Water [ca. 26 meters], having the Trunk of his Body cas’d in Armour, had his Limbs so squeezed, that the Circulation of the Fluids was almost stop’d, and the Blood was forced out of his Eyes, Nose and Ears, by the great Pressure of the incumbent Water, which nearly inclos’d the Vessels. He lay six Weeks by the Hurt he received, and tho’ he saw a Cask of Dollars, but at a small Distance from him, it was not in his Power to proceed farther; and One, his Companion, venturing to do so, was near expiring when he came up, and actually dy’d in three Days time.38

In addition, divers faced the dangers of hypothermia, predatory fish, and drowning, since below a depth of ca. 60 feet (ca. 18 meters) they were not au-tomatically carried upward, but instead forced downward by the water pres-sure.39 Still, divers’ reports such as the ones quoted by Boyle speak only of amazement, not of fear. It is likely that role expectations for men did not allow for the formulation of such emotions or did not allow them to pass the thresh-old of the printed word, since according to other reports, divers wrote their wills and said goodbye to their friends before making their descent, which

35 Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 166f.36 Edmund Halley, “The Art of Living under Water: Or, a Discourse concerning the Means

of furnishing Air at the Bottom of the Sea, in any ordinary Depths. By Edm. Halley, ll.d. Secretary to the Royal Society,” Philosophical Transactions 29 (1714–1716): 492–99, here 493f.: “… if the Depth be considerable, the pressure of the Water on the Vessels is found by Experience to make the Eyes Blood-shot, and frequently to occasion spitting of Blood.”

37 Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 263.38 M[artin] Clare, The Motion of Fluids, Natural and Artificial; in particular that of Air and

Water, … (London: Printed for Edward Symon, 1735), 161.39 Kevin Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World,” The Journal of

American History, 92 (2006): 1327–55, here 1346, 1349f.




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suggests they were well aware of the risk of death.40 Despite these dangers ex-periments continued. Research and mastery of the underwater world became itself a field of imperial competition between nations. Numerous inventors de-veloped designs for submarines, and although their functionality usually failed to match their creators’ ambitions, their lofty hopes were clearly linked to the imperial project.41 Thus John Wilkins (1614–72) dreamed of underwater colo-nies where children would grow up who had never seen the earth’s surface.42 Most of the time economic, military, and colonial interests were of primary importance, whereas scientific interests were considered secondary. Science did, however, also benefit in the process: as a member of several colonial agen-cies, Robert Boyle profited in his scientific work from the information received by those institutions,43 and many scientific questions were raised only after practitioners’ initial experiences in the underwater world.

With the rise of the empire, English travelers increasingly came into con-tact with people of other nations who clearly had far more experience and hence also greater swimming and diving abilities than they themselves. For his project, William Phips had brought divers from the Bermudas and Ja-maica with him. Boyle reported on pearl divers in Manar (near Ceylon)44 and female divers in Japan.45 One of his informants had learned a special diving technique from the Native Americans.46 Jesuit missionaries wrote in the 1708 Philosophical Transactions about the diving expertise of Filipinos.47 And in a 1711 compilation of travel reports from the second half of the previous century

40 Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal-Society of London, For the Improving of Natural Knowledge (London: printed by T.R. for J. Martyn, J. Allestry, 1667), 169.

41 Rebekka v. Mallinckrodt, “Taucherglocken, U-Boote und Aquanauten – Die Erschließung der Meere im 17. Jahrhundert zwischen Utopie und Experiment,” in Karin Friedrich, ed., Die Erschließung des Raumes: Konstruktion, Imagination und Darstellung von Räumen und Grenzen im Barockzeitalter (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2014), 337–54.

42 John Wilkins, Mathematicall magick or, the vvonders that may be performed by mechanicall geometry …, (London: Gellibrand, 1648), 190.

43 Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 119.44 Boyle, “Relations about the Bottom of the Sea,” 350, 353.45 Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 263.46 Boyle, “Relations about the Bottom of the Sea,” 353: “that when in America he learned to

dive of the Indians, they taught him by their examples, to creep along by the rocks and great stones that lay near the shore, at the bottom of the water, to shelter themselves from the strokes and other ill effects of the billows, which near the shore, and where the sea was so shallow as it was there, did often hurt and endanger swimmers and unskilful divers.”

47 Paul Clain and Father Le Gobien, “An Extract of Two Letters from the Missionary Jesuits, concerning the Discovery of the New Philippine-Islands, with a Map of the Same,” Philo-sophical Transactions 26 (1708–9): 189–99, here 196.



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published in London, Captain J. Wood and F. Marten reported on the extraordi-nary diving abilities of Greenlanders who were used as pearl divers on Jutland but who allegedly barely spoke a word of Danish, to say nothing of accept-ing the Christian faith.48 Instead of analyzing the well-known stereotypical representations of “others” in travel reports from the Early Modern Period, I want to focus here on how extraordinary abilities in diving were represented. From a European perspective, ideas about civilization – which were associated with (their own) language and (their own) Christian religion – appear to have stood in diametric opposition toward physical abilities such as diving. Thus, many accounts convey an ambiguous picture, on the one hand characterizing indigenous people as savage, on the other hand – often in the same breath and sometimes juxtaposed – expressing admiration for their swimming and diving abilities. A 1718 description of the indigenous population of Brazil represents a typical example: “The Inhabitants are Rude, Cruel, Lascivious, and if they are excellent in any thing, it is in Diving under Water.”49 The Dutch slave trader Willem Bosman (b. 1672), stationed on the Gold Coast by the Dutch West India Company, characterized black Africans in a similar way,50 as did the Flemish traveler Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin (ca. 1645–1707) when writing about Na-tive Americans:

The Islands de las Pertas are inhabited by Savage Indians, not having known or conversed with civil People; they are tall and very nimble, run-ning almost as fast as horses; at diving also they are very dexterous and hardy. From the bottom of the Sea I saw them take up an Anchor of 600 Weight [sic], tying a Cable to it with great dexterity, and pulling it from a Rock.51

48 “A Supplement to Capt. Wood’s and Marten’s North–East Voyages. Containing some Ob-servations and Navigations to the North-West of Groneland, and other Northern Regions,” in An Account of several late Voyages and Discoveries: i. Sir John Narbrough’s Voyage to the South-Sea By the Command of King Charles the Second: …, (London: D. Brown, J. Round, W. Innys and T. Ward, 1711), 189–223, here 209ff.

49 G.J., Geography Epitomiz’d: or, the London Gazetteer. Being a Geographical and Historical Treatise of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America …, (London: Charles Rivington; Jer. Batley and Tho. Warner; J. Sackfield, 1718), 216.

50 Willem Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, Divided into the Gold, the Slave, and the Ivory Coasts …, (London: James Knapton, Dan. Midwinter, 1705), 491.

51 A[lexandre] O[livier] Exquemelin, The History of the Bucaniers of America; From the First Original down to this Time; Written in several Languages; and now Collected into one Volume …, (London: Tho. Newborough, John Nicholson, Benj. Tacke, 1704), 75.




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These and countless other travel reports offered to the London public at the beginning of the eighteenth century resembled each other in the way they characterized indigenous people in terms of their physicality, at times even bordering on animality (“running almost as fast as horses”), and thereby distanced them from the “civilized world.”52 Thus, the irritating superior-ity of indigenous divers did not lead to reversing established hierarchies between physical and cognitive labor. Instead, exceedingly good skills in aquatic motion placed beings in between the realms of the human and ani-mal worlds: Thus, Thomas Glover reported in the Philosophical Transactions in 1676, that hybrid creatures between fish and men in Virginia resembled Native Americans.53 At the same time, such hierarchizations – given men’s power to rule over all animals (and also half-animals) – could serve as a justification of colonialism and the slave trade. Thus the Dutchman Willem Bosman’s view of black Africans was like that of someone watching children at play or, in the worst case, dogs who dove into the water to retrieve an object without a second thought:

You are probably acquainted with the expert Swimming and Diving of these Negroes, which I have several times seen with Surprize. Whenever they were on Board, and I threw a string of Coral, or anything else into the Sea, one of them would immediately dive after it, and tho’ almost got to the bottom fetch it up again. This they seldom missed of, and were sure of what they brought up as their Reward.54

Unlike this euphemistic depiction, however, as early as the sixteenth century Africans were enslaved because of their swimming and diving abilities and forced into pearl diving, shipwreck recovery and the clearing of riverbeds,55 especially after the indigenous population of the Americas had been severe-ly depleted by disease and exploitation. Thus, Europeans used the superior-ity of indigenous divers for their imperial projects. Pieter de Marees of the Netherlands hence wrote at the beginning of the seventeenth century of Gold Coast Africans:

52 On Africa see Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers,” 1332. These stereotypes were not only ap-plied to Africans, however.

53 Thomas Glover, “An Account of Virginia,” in Philosophical Transactions 11 (1676), 623–36, here 625f.

54 Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, 491.55 Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers,” 1339, 1346.



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[They] are very fast swimmers and can keep themselves underwater for a long time. They can dive amazingly far, no less deep, and can see un-derwater. Because they are so good at swimming and diving, they are specially kept for that purpose in many Countries and employed in this capacity where there is a need for them, such as the Island of St. Margaret in the West Indies, where Pearls are found and brought up from the bot-tom by Divers.56

According to this last testimony indigenous divers even differed from European divers in their sense perception, in that they could see underwater. However, this difference is neither mentioned in other accounts nor is it likely to have been a fundamental distinction: it is improbable that European divers could not see underwater, since this would have rendered them useless for any sub-marine ship wrecking that was taking place in Europe at the time. Still, because of their special abilities diving slaves were sometimes able to negotiate better living conditions for themselves, especially since the use of diving bells was ex-pensive and therefore rare.57 Kevin Dawson nonetheless speaks of “privileged exploitation,” since the sole purpose of rewards was to extract more from the divers who ultimately had no other choice.

“Empire and Diving” thus had various dimensions: the economically mo-tivated retrieval of sunken goods and the extraction of marine resources, the growing scientific exploration of the ocean, and colonial fantasies about mas-tery over the underwater world in addition to the contact with and exploita-tion of indigenous people to achieve these aims.

3 Distance and Immersion

It was the combination of this whole array of features that at the end of the seventeenth century kept scientists like Boyle from making their own descent. Diving was dangerous, it was an activity done by slaves, non-European “sav-ages” and the lower classes, it was associated with economic striving and greed, and had a decidedly physical, even sensual character.

56 Pieter de Marees, Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea, trans. Albert Van Dantzig and Adam Jones (1602; Oxford: British Academy, 1987), 186; quoted from Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers,” 1348.

57 This and the following Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers,” 1348, 1352, 1354.




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Even during and after the process we call the scientific revolution, physical experience and technical skill remained problematic,58 since centuries-old hierarchies were not abandoned in a short period of time and need to be seen in socio-historical context: manual labor and physical work in general were considered menial. Whoever could afford it delegated these activities to servants, maids and farmhands. In Robert Birch’s History of the Royal So-ciety it is therefore usually unnamed professional divers, “amanuenses” and “operators” who prepare the diving machines and do the testing.59 Members of the Royal Society merely reported and supervised.60 The abovementioned Ralph Greatorex was a watchmaker and instrument maker whose payment was guaranteed by the Royal Society in the event of success.61 On the other hand, economic independence and thereby freedom from the need to work were among the basic characteristics of a gentleman.62 As the younger son of Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, Robert Boyle belonged to the gentry,63 but it was only his father who had attained nobility. After the death of his father, Robert Boyle inherited properties in Dorset that made a life without financial worries possible. He thus turned to the sciences out of interest and not to earn an income, as he later stressed repeatedly in order to emphasize his lack of financial interest and demonstrate his aristocratic way of life (one not yet secured by old family tradition). Economic independence was even construed as the prerequisite for the unprejudiced and impartial view of the new type of scientist;64 hence, social and scientific roles mutually enhanced one another.

At the same time, scientists like Boyle and others worked together with nu-merous lab assistants, technicians, and artisans, depended on them and relied on their knowledge, but they by no means wanted to be placed on the same

58 Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 185; Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 376, 395.

59 Birch, The History of the Royal Society, 1: 21 (1661), 35 (1661), 104 (1662), 396 (1664), 422 (1664), 424 (1664), 425 (1664), 433 (1664); 2: 24 (1664), 26 (1664), 262 (1668), 264 (1668).

60 Ibid., 1: 425 (1664).61 Ibid., 1: 370 (1664); Bendall, “Greatorex, Ralph (c. 1625–1675),” passim.62 Formulated for instance in Henry Peacham’s The Compleat Gentleman of 1622: “touch-

ing Mechanicall Arts and Artists, whosoeuer labour for their liuelihoood and gaine, haue no share at all in Nobilitie or Gentry …” (Henry Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman … ( London: [imprinted by John Legat] for Francis Constable, 1622), 12ff.).

63 This and the following Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 130–44.64 Ibid., 181, 383, 387, 389, 405, 407; Smith, Body of the Artisan, 229ff.



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level with them.65 To his annoyance, Robert Hooke was sometimes called a “mechanick artist,”66 which he did not want to be. Robert Boyle felt there was no shame in visiting a workshop, but at the same time he was convinced that the natural philosopher could be of far greater use to the artisan than the other way around.67 In his 1667 History of the Royal Society, Thomas Sprat wanted to place artisans under the complete control of scientists: “… the weak minds of the Artists themselves will be strengthen’d, their low conceptions advanc’d, and the obscurity of their shops inlighten’d: … the flegmatick imaginations of men of Trade, which use to grovell too much on the ground, will be exalted.”68 As scientific knowledge was produced collectively, granting assistants and techni-cians a higher value (and mentioning them by name, for example) would have posed a threat to the elevated status of the scientist.69 The distinction between them was therefore repeatedly constructed by juxtaposing “knowledge” and “skill,” “theory” and “practice,” “head” and “hand.” In his writings Boyle hence referred to the abovementioned instrument maker Ralph Greatorex only as “Mr. G.,” and that – given the complete anonymity of virtually all assistants – was already a lot. Frequently stressing the intellectual incompetence of the in-terviewed divers, while simultaneously relying on their testimony, also helped to uphold these hierarchies. Boyle’s informants were in turn merely suppliers, and were also supposed to remain so in their anonymity.70 For in the eyes of bourgeois and aristocratic scientists there was a real danger that this revalua-tion of practical work also included a social claim.71

In his 1676 comedy The Virtuoso, Thomas Shadwell (1642?–92) took a satiri-cal look at (economic) disinterestedness and intellectual perspicacity (in con-trast to menial practice) in connection with swimming. When two characters in the play named Longvil and Bruce try to visit the main character Sir Nicho-las Gimcrack, his embarrassed wife is forced to admit: “The truth on’t is, he is within, but upon some private business: but nothing shall be reserved from

65 Smith, Body of the Artisan, 230.66 Robert Iliffe, “Material Doubts: Hooke, Artisan Culture and the Exchange of Information

in 1670s London,” British Journal for the History of Science 28 (1995): 285–318, here 317; quoted from Smith, Body of the Artisan, 231.

67 Smith, Body of the Artisan, 231.68 Sprat, The History of the Royal-Society of London, 396.69 This and the following Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 359, 361, 372f., 383, 387, 389, 405,

407.70 Reference to this is made already by Deacon, Scientists and the Sea, 129.71 Smith, Body of the Artisan, 185.




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such accomplish’d persons as you are. The truth on’t is, he’s learning to swim.”72 Instead of in a swimming pool, the two visitors find Gimcrack face down on his laboratory table copying the movements of a frog in a nearby bowl. Upon ask-ing if he wouldn’t like to try swimming in water, Bruce receives only the reply: “Never, Sir; I hate the water, I never come upon the Water, Sir.”73 In response to the question of what then the use of swimming is, Gimcrack answers: “I con-tent myself with the Speculative part of Swimming, I care not for the Practick. I seldom bring anything to use, ’tis not my way. Knowledge is my ultimate end.”74

With the institutionalization of “new philosophy” in England, not only did efforts to distinguish scientists from artisans and technicians increase: the sen-sory components of science itself became incrementally problematized and the desire to control the physical dimension of the cognitive process grew. In the course of the seventeenth century, even distrust of sensory perception once again increased.75 On the one hand, questioning the senses had an epis-temic dimension: by “mathematizing” the natural sciences, scientists tried to give them a certainty that was comparable to logical or geometrical proof. Robert Hooke (1635–1703) therefore advocated introducing measurement in-struments in order to overcome the fallibility of the senses and achieve cer-tain knowledge. It was for the same reason that Boyle had ultimately chosen to use vials rather than the physical description of divers to measure water pressure.76

On the other hand, the use of the senses was morally questionable and risky, since the sensory perception of a slimy underwater fruit was only one short step away from lust. Sense perception thus not only ran the risk of being deceptive, it was also closely linked to the passions. Sight and touch, which were supposed to play a central role especially in the new empirical sciences,77 were considered particularly dangerous. Touch (together with smell and taste) belonged to the lower or more basal senses that were more strongly rooted in the body, and it was linked particularly often with eroticism, sexuality and

72 Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso. A Comedy, Acted at the Duke’s Theatre (London: printed by T.N. for Henry Herringman, 1676), 24. Text found thanks to a reference in Ralph Thom-as, Swimming: A Bibliographical List of Works on Swimming by the Author of the Handbook of Fictitious Names, 2nd ed. (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1904), 14.

73 Shadwell, The Virtuoso, 27.74 Ibid.75 This and the following Smith, Body of the Artisan, 20, 24, 185f., 222.76 Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 263. See also Simon Schaffer, “Self Evidence,” Critical

Inquiry 18, no. 2 (1992): 327–62, here 328, 330, 362.77 Smith, Body of the Artisan, 223.



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animality since it presupposes a “lack of distance.”78 Boyle even spoke of “one of the most dull of the five senses.”79 The sense of touch was often symbolically represented by a hand, but as a sense that was spread over and in the entire body it was ultimately not bound to one particular organ or area, and hence seemed even less controllable and barely distinguishable from body percep-tion as a whole (proprioception).80 This was even more so while swimming and diving since the entire body was involved. In addition, the person enter-ing the cool liquid assumed a horizontal position that was disapproved of in literature of the time as something that went against human nature and that demeaned humans to the same level as the lowliest crawling animals. When the British naturalist Thomas Browne (1605–82) noted that animals moved the same way in the water as on land, while human beings had to abandon their upright position,81 he evoked an entire philosophical and theological tradition about the dignity of human beings as God’s creation and their superiority over the animal kingdom.82

It was therefore all the more important that the scientist in his entire habi-tus presented himself as a moderate, unemotional and dispassionate, even pi-ous figure so as not to discredit research as a whole as being dominated by

78 Kambaskovic and Wolfe, “The Senses in Philosophy and Science,” 108f., 117, 121; Harvey, “Introduction,” 1, 4, 7, 11, 13.

79 Robert Boyle, “Of the determinate Nature of Effluviums” (1673), in Birch, Works, 3: 689–706, here 694; quoted from Kambaskovic and Wolfe, “The Senses in Philosophy and Science,” 120.

80 Harvey, “Introduction,” 4f.; Kambaskovic and Wolfe, “The Senses in Philosophy and Sci-ence,” 122f.

81 Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very many received Tenents, And commonly presumed Truths (London: Tho. Harper, Edward Dod., 1646), Chap. 6, “Of Swimming,” 193–95, here 193.

82 See Classen, The Deepest Sense, 104; Anselm Schubert, Das Ende der Sünde. Anthropologie und Erbsünde zwischen Reformation und Aufklärung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupre-cht, 2002), 108–24. On the roots of this notion in antiquity: Petra Feuerstein-Herz, „Die große Kette der Wesen.“ Ordnungen in der Naturgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007). On the emphasis on this “upright” principle as a means of social dis-tinction: Georges Vigarello, “The Upward Training of the Body from the Age of Chivalry to Courtly Civility,” in Michael Feher, ed., Fragments for a History of the Human Body (New York: Urzone, 1989), 2: 148–99; Ludwig-Uhland-Institut für empirische Kulturwissenschaft der Universität Tübingen, ed., Der aufrechte Gang. Zur Symbolik einer Körperhaltung, Aus-stellungskatalog (Tübingen: Ludwig-Uhland-Institut für empirische Kulturwissenschaft, 1990); Kirsten O. Frieling, “Haltung bewahren. Der Körper im Spiegel frühneuzeitlicher Schriften über Umgangsformen,” in Rebekka v. Mallinckrodt, ed., Bewegtes Leben. Kör-pertechniken in der Frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 39–59.




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sensuality. This might find expression in his way of life, but also in his way of presenting scientific findings.83 Hence Robert Boyle, who cast himself as a virtual priest-mediator of divine truth, was known for his piety.84 He remained unmarried his whole life (which admittedly was neither unusual for a son of the aristocracy nor for a scientist at that time) and even had the aura of leading a saintly life.

Conversely, efforts to promote swimming and diving as useful for research as well as for the imperial project, and even as techniques based on scientific principles, apparently had only limited success. In the new preface (1699) to a swimming manual originally published in the sixteenth century, the (re)trans-lator systematically turned to the new leading science of mechanics: if the rules of swimming had been explained earlier by capable people, swimming techniques would have reached a much higher level than at present. Accord-ing to the translator, employing the laws of mechanics was essential in order to achieve this aim:

… to determine the business perfectly, Recourse ought to be had to Me-chanicks, wherein the reasons of the whole are founded. The action of Swimming in Man, like a Boat with a pair of Oars, is nothing but a mo-tion propagated by Vectes, whose Fulciments are movable; and conse-quently all the reasons of it reducible to that of the Vectis, and thence it is easie to find out and determine which motions are best and most expeditious upon all occasions whatsoever, and to demonstrate the truth of them.85

No one had ever written about swimming like this before, and no one would write about it like this again for a long time afterwards. While travel reports

83 Smith, Body of the Artisan, 226–28. See also Stephen Gaukroger, “Introduction,” in idem., The Soft Underbelly of Reason. The Passions in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Rout-ledge, 1998), 1–14, here 4f.

84 This and the following Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 158–60, 164–66; Smith, Body of the Artisan, 229.

85 Melchisédech Thévenot, The Art of Swimming. Illustrated by Proper Figures. With Advice for Bathing … (London: Printed for Dan. Brown; D. Midwinter and T. Leigh; Robert Knap-lock, 1699), The Translator’s Preface [no pagination]. The translator mentions diving here, but because of additional relevant aspects (air pressure, diving apparatus), its discussion would exceed the limits of a preface. Everard Digby’s Latin treatise of 1587 was translated into English in 1595 and 1658, and in 1696 appeared under the name Thévenot as the first French-language swimming manual. The 1699 re-translation into English cited here was published under Thévenot’s name.



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suggested that non-Europeans – like animals – swam instinctively,86 Europeans made swimming into a science.

Even so, in London at the beginning of the eighteenth century Benjamin Franklin could still offer his services as a swimming teacher with almost no competition.87 Many people apparently could not swim, and though swim-ming was generally recommended as a useful skill in the pedagogical literature of the time,88 there were few opportunities to learn it even in the capital city. How inexperienced particularly the gentlemen-scientists were with regard to swimming and diving is reflected in reports of phenomenal diving times that could only be disproven after consultations with professional divers.89 Though there is evidence of students swimming in Oxford from the second half of the seventeenth century,90 people apparently abandoned this habit once they reached adulthood.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Edmund Halley (1656–1742) found an elegant solution to the dilemma of the necessary yet problematic bodily experience when exploring the underwater world. Writing under the promising title “The Art of Living under Water,” he reported in the 1714–16 Philosophical Transactions on his improvements to the diving bell as well as on his own descent.91 He was consequently able to state with far greater self- confidence: “By experiment it is found” (493) and “Experience teaches us”

86 Dawson, “Enslaved Swimmers,” 1332.87 Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography and other Writings on Politics, Economics, and Vir-

tue, ed. Alan Houston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 40.88 Nicholas Orme, “Introduction,” in idem., Early British Swimming 55 bc–ad 1719. With the

First Swimming Treatise in English, 1595 ([Exeter]: University of Exeter, 1983), 1–110, here 52–54, 96–98. In 1658 for instance William Percey prepared a new translation of Everard Digby’s Latin swimming manual from the sixteenth century (without naming the author), which he modeled after Henry Peacham’s popular text The Compleat Gentleman (1622), calling it The Compleat Swimmer. In it he recommended swimming to men and women (!) as entertainment and physical exercise, but primarily as a way to save one’s own life. Of interest in view of swimming practices at the time is Percey’s note in the preface that this small booklet will introduce readers to swimming techniques other than the familiar one on the stomach that, while widely used, is also quite strenuous (William Percey, The Compleat Swimmer: or, The Art of Swimming: Demonstrating The Rules and Practice thereof, in an Exact, Plain and Easie Method. Necessary to be known and practised by all who studie or desire their own Preservation … (London: Printed by J.C. for Henry Fletcher, 1658), To the … Reader [no pagination]).

89 Robert Boyle, “New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of Air (1660),” in Birch, Works 1: 1–117, here 111.

90 Orme, “Introduction,” 103.91 Halley, “The Art of Living under Water,” 492–99.




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(494), and he described the noticeable increase in inner-ear pressure and how to relieve it:

Hence on the first descent of the Bell, a Pressure begins to be felt on each Ear, which by degrees grows painful, like as if a Quill were forcibly thrust into the Hole of the Ear; till at length, the force overcoming the Obstacle, that which constringes these Pores yields to the Pressure, and letting some condensed Air flip in, present Ease ensues. But the Bell de-scending still lower, the Pain is renewed, and again eased after the same manner. … This Force on the auditory Passages might possibly be sus-pected to be prejudicial to the Organs of Hearing, but that Experience teaches otherwise.92

Unlike the professional divers whose accounts were reproduced in Boyle’s work, Halley is neither surprised nor affected; although he suffers a temporary pain in his ears, he describes his experiences unemotionally as if he himself had been uninvolved and without abiding damage to his sensory organs. Given the physiological conceptions at that time, this was the opposite of what might have been expected. According to these notions, a refined way of life also led to a heightened sensitivity, while manual labor correspondingly resulted in a toughening that made workers seem less adapted to having and being aware of such perceptions.93 This detached bodily perception, however, was the prereq-uisite that enabled scientists to establish themselves as authorities in such self-experimentation, and was conceded only to gentlemen (while lower classes were supposed to be incapable of it).94

How did Halley avoid – beyond this form of reporting – the threat of degra-dation? For one, he placed an instrument between himself and the wet mass of water. Halley descended in the diving bell:

… I my self have been One of Five who have been together at the Bot-tom, in nine or ten Fathoms Water [ca. 18–20 meters], for above an Hour and half at a time, without any sort of ill consequence: and I might have continued there as long as I pleased, for any thing that appeared to the contrary. Besides the whole Cavity of the Bell was kept entirely free from Water, so that I sat on a Bench, which was diametrically placed near the Bottom, wholly drest with all my Cloaths on.95

92 Ibid., 495f.93 Shapin, A Social History of Truth, 264.94 Schaffer, “Self Evidence,” 339, 360.95 Halley, “The Art of Living under Water,” 498.



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James Delbourgo therefore interprets Halley’s dive in the context of Baroque water culture, which in an inversion of the fountain and waterworks displays on land created a dry space underwater and thereby also a safe place in the midst of deadly peril.96 In my view, Halley’s body position and specific activi-ties allow us to take this interpretation one step further. In this foreign environ-ment Halley remained not only fully clothed (unlike the partially or completely naked divers), but also behaved like a perfect gentleman, reading and writing as well as directing the whole action from below while a group of assistants busied themselves with the motion of the bell:

Thus I found I could do any thing that was required to be done just un-der us; and that, by taking off the Stage, I could, for a space as wide as the Circuit of the Bell, lay the Bottom of the Sea so far Dry, as not to be over-shoes thereon. And by the Glass Window, so much Light was trans-mitted, that, when the Sea was clear, and especially when the Sun shone, I could see perfectly well to Write or Read, much more to fasten or lay hold on any thing under us, that was to be taken up. And by the return of the Air-Barrels, I often sent up Orders, written with an Iron Pen on small Plates of Lead, directing how to move us from Place to Place as occasion required.97

He thereby clearly differed from the professional divers, who most certainly left the diving bell to do retrieval work and for whom he devised an air hose.98 Although he used sight as well as touch in order to “fasten or lay hold on any thing under us,” in contrast to the divers he was not immersed in the foreign sensescape but kept a distance by moving and acting as if on dry land. In do-ing this he was not exposed to his surroundings in the same way as Boyle’s divers – who were subjected to sensory perceptions they could not influence – but instead remained in control of the situation.

How influential this depiction of and focus on the gentlemanlike character of the action was, can be seen in its history of reception: “… the Doctor says, he has read a Gazette, at the Bottom of the Sea, in calm Weather” writes Martin Clare in 1735, for instance, further embellishing Halley’s description.99 It also becomes obvious if we compare Halley’s report and how it was received with similar experiments from the same period of time: on June 22, 1695 the London

96 Delbourgo, “Underwater-Works,” passim, esp. 117f.97 Halley, “The Art of Living under Water,” 498f.98 Ibid., 499.99 Clare, The Motion of Fluids, 166.




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Post Boy and Historical Account reported on John Stephens from Topsham in the County of Devon who was testing a new diving machine. To demonstrate its functionality and the safety of the experiment, which involved spending half an hour four fathoms (ca. 8 meters) under water, “[he] danced, sung, and answered several Questions through the Pipes that reached into the Boat, and was so active that he could do any Business that reason can require, to the great satisfaction of a numerous resort of Spectators that were present, …” Similarly, a newspaper report on the diving experiments of John Letheridge from Newton-Abbot in the County of Devon reminds one of popular science demonstrations at annual fairs: “… he carry’d down Fire, and bak’d a Cake at the Bottom, stay’d about half an Hour, and ate his Dinner there; and this he did without the Use of Air-Pipes.”100 Even if his ultimate purpose was to demon-strate the abundance of usable air, Halley notably did not prepare food nor did he sing or dance; rather, he choose to present himself as a reading, writing and thereby almost bodiless scientist. A candle that illuminated his underwater reading served as proof of the bountiful air supply.

4 Conclusion

Halley had been experimenting in the Thames and on the coast of Sussex since 1689 and founded a stock company to finance his operations. Like others be-fore him, he hoped to recover sunken treasure: in his case ivory that had sunk in the English Channel along with the Royal African Company ship Guynie on its return from the West African coast. Although he was able to retrieve only one elephant tusk, on a more fundamental level Halley bridged the gap be-tween speculative science on the one hand and “uneducated practice” on the other.101 To bridge this gap and at the same time solve Boyle’s dilemma laid out in the introduction, it seemed to be more important to represent oneself as a distanced sovereign of the experimental situation rather than to privilege sight over touch (as supposed by the “great divide” theory).102 Although the two senses were linked to distance and lack of distance, respectively, the process of dissociation that is illustrated by Halley was more complex. Just as James

100 Weekly Packet (London, England), March 26, 1720–April 2, 1720; Issue 404.101 Alan H. Cook, Edmond Halley. Charting the Heavens and the Seas (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1998), 236–43; Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits, 216–22; Delbourgo, “Underwater-Works,” 116f.; Delbourgo, “Divers Things,” 172; Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands, 1: The Introduction, lxxxi.

102 See Daniela Hacke and Paul P. Musselwhite, “Introduction,” 8–9, in this volume.



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Delbourgo shows that Halley removed all traces of his economic interest from the final published version of his report,103 Halley also filtered out the physical-sensory side of diving that is still evident in the reports of professional divers interviewed by Boyle. Both eliminations helped to perpetuate the image of a scientist devoid of financial interest, physicality and emotionality, an image that distinguished him not only from local professional divers and artisans but also from indigenous divers, as shown by the ethnographic view of the latter in travel reports from the Early Modern Period. This detached position that sug-gested control of the situation at any given moment could only be constructed as the opposite of immersion (as represented physically, emotionally and intel-lectually by swimming and diving).

In the decades that followed we still look in vain for divers doing natural historical research and entering the water without the protective shell of the diving bell. Instruments were lowered, profit was gained from primarily indige-nous divers, and descents were made in the diving bell, but for most bourgeois and noble researchers the practice of firsthand and indeed full-body experi-ence remained incompatible with their habitus as detached, well-to-do mem-bers of the scientific community until well into the eighteenth century. The body as an instrument of knowledge with all its senses thus continued to be problematic even after the scientific revolution, and efforts to draw social dis-tinctions between scientists and artisans as well as racial differences between European and indigenous populations remained virulent.104 Instead, traces of economic interest as well as psycho-physical experience and hence the social and moral tensions they entailed were removed from scientific publications, with consequences felt even today in terms of a disembodied and disinterested scientific ideal that has been passed on till the present.105

103 Delbourgo, “Divers Things,” 175.104 Smith, Body of the Artisan, 231.105 This applies not only to the natural sciences but also to scientific practice as a whole (see,

e.g., Classen, The Deepest Sense, xi: “This omission of tactile experience is noticeable not only in the field of history, but across the humanities and social sciences.”).



Just released: Exploring Underwater Worlds. Diving in the late 17th/ early 18th Century British...

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