The Silent World

In The Silent World, Cousteau describes in colorful French-accented English the adventures that paved the way to his remarkable discoveries: his work defusing undetonated torpedoes in the Bay of Nice during World War II; his perilous experimental forays with untried equipment into deeper and deeper levels of the sea; discoveries in sunken ships; observing the animal life of the oceans (whales and porpoises playing ``chasing games as if they had a brain capacity for satire''; sharks spooning away ``solid flesh like warm butter''); and encountering the strange silent panorama that opened up before the eyes of the first human beings to venture freely about the deeps.