Reading Jacques-Yves Cousteau's captivating new book ["The Living Sea"], I had a strong impulse to hand in this review and immediately take off to find Calypso. From this, his oceangoing research ship, the famed French undersea explorer has helped to open a fascinating and challenging underwater world.

Some academic oceanographers have found it fashionable to discount his exploits. But the years of effort that have been compressed into the pages of this book speak for themselves of the great contribution Captain Cousteau has made to oceanographic science.

He would himself lay no claim to being a scientific expert. Yet from the aqualung to his most recent innovation of the diving saucer, a jet propelled submarine, which will carry two men comfortably to depths of 1,000 feet, he has done as much if not more than any other contemporary marine explorer to open the way to a new opportunity for...