The Infernal Diver

THE INFERNAL DIVER by John Bevan is a diving book unlike any other you have read or are likely to read. It tells a true story of the two pioneers and inventors of the diving helmet who were conveniently forgotten by those who later claimed the credit. Pick up almost any book that deals, even passingly, with the history of diving and you will read that Augustus Siebe invented the diving helmet early in the 19th century. Alexander McKee was the first to suspect that brothers John and Charles Deane were the true inventors, and Siebe the leading manufacturer of their designs. This is the gripping story of the triumphs and tragedies of the Deanes. Magnificently and expertly researched, it covers their lives and dives, their wrecks and deaths. One brother was an optimist, the other a pessimist; one successful, one doomed to failure and a grisly end. They started from a poverty-stricken background to become the world's first commercial and military divers. Their story moves from London around the British Isles as they search for wrecks and treasure. John Deane became Britain's diving and explosives expert in the Crimea, where he won the nickname 'The Infernal Diver'. The writer's research