Into the Unknown For the French-speaking world, the navigator who occupied popular imagination most powerfully was Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de La Pérouse (1741-88). La Pérouse’s skill and experience led Louis XVI to appoint him to lead a voyage of exploration and discovery that was to put the finishing touches to the work of the English explorer Captain James Cook. La Pérouse cast off from Brest in 1785 with two frigates, L’Astrolabe and La Boussole, and proceeded by way of Cape Horn to the Pacific Ocean. For the next two years his ships criss-crossed the Pacific making stops in Hawai´i, Alaska, California, China, the Philippines, Siberia, and Australia. He periodically sent journals back to France with information on his discoveries. The last of these was sent from Botany Bay in Australia in early 1788. After departing Botany Bay, L’Astrolabe and La Boussole headed back into the Pacific and were never seen again. The mystery of La Pérouse’s disappearance inspired poems, a play, and nearly a dozen other expeditions to the Pacific in search of the missing explorer. It was not until 1826 that traces of L’Astrolabe were discovered on Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands. The final piece of the puzzle was solved in 1964 when the wreck of La Boussole was discovered in the reefs nearby. Jacques-Yves Cousteau As co-inventor and principal developer of the Aqualung, or self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–97) opened more of the earth’s surface to human investigation than any other explorer in history. Cousteau became a household name as he documented four decades of undersea exploration through his widely published books, Oscar-winning films, and hugely popular television program, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. Following his personal credo, Il faut aller voir (We must go and see for ourselves), Cousteau went on to organize three underwater living expeditions (known as Conshelf) to prove that humans could live and work on the ocean floor. He also founded the Cousteau Society, dedicated to marine conservation. Young Cousteau was already an avid swimmer when he gained admission to the French naval academy at Brest in 1930. While stationed at the naval base at Toulon as an artillery instructor, Cousteau teamed up with Philippe Tailliez and Frederic Dumas to experiment with creating watertight goggles. Cousteau said of his test of the prototype, “Sometimes we are lucky enough to know that our lives have been changed, to discard the old, embrace the new, and run headlong down an immutable course. It happened to me on that summer’s day, when my eyes were opened on the sea.” During World War II, Cousteau expanded his efforts to dive deeper and stay underwater longer. He began working with Emile Gagnon, who had invented an automatic valve that Cousteau believed could feed compressed air at the pressure of the surrounding water to a diver as needed. In 1943 the pair patented the Aqualung, thus realizing Cousteau’s dream of transforming a diver into a “manfish.” After establishing and serving in the French Navy’s Undersea Research Group, Cousteau took permanent leave to pursue his interest in undersea exploration and environmental causes. Cousteau’s first book, The Silent World, was translated into twenty-two languages and sold more than five million copies. The film of the same name won him the first of his three Oscars and introduced the nature documentary as a distinct cinematic form. Cousteau once wrote, “From birth man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders.… But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.… Under water, man becomes an archangel.” International Efforts at Ocean Exploration Continue Today at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the largest independent oceanographic institution in the world, is a private, non-profit research facility dedicated to the study of marine sciences and to the education of marine scientists. Since its founding in 1930, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, scientists and students working in applied physics and engineering, biology, geology, geophysics, marine chemistry, and geochemistry have investigated and communicated to the world the processes and characteristics governing how the oceans function and how they interact with the earth. For more information click here TOP: Photoillustration of prototype diving suit, ca. 1882 (detail), Carmagnole Brothers. Iron, leather, glass. Related Links Official site of the Cousteau Society Interactive CNN feature on Cousteau's life and legacy