prompting some excited observers to speculate that they had found the lost continent of Atlantis. 这使得有的考察人员激动不已，认为他们已经发现了传说中沉人海底的大陆亚特兰蒂斯。

　　Because the institutional world mostly ignored the seas, 由于世界上的学术机构大多不大重视海洋。

　　it fell to devoted—and very occasional—amateurs to tell us what was down there. 倒是由热心的——数却为很少的——业余人员来告诉我们海底下的情况。

　　Modern deep-water exploration begins with Charles William Beebe and Otis Barton in 1930. 现代的深海探索于1930年从查尔斯·威廉·毕比和奥蒂斯·巴顿开始。

　　Although they were equal partners, the more colorful Beebe has always received far more written attention. 虽然他们是平等的伙伴关系，但文字记录总是突出更有色彩的毕比。

　　Born in 1877 into a well-to-do family in New York City, 毕比1877年生于纽约市的一个小康家庭，

　　Beebe studied zoology at Columbia University, then took a job as a birdkeeper at the New York Zoological Society. 曾在哥伦比亚大学攻读动物学，后来在纽约动学会担任养鸟员。

　　Tiring of that, he decided to adopt the life of an adventurer 他对这份工作感到厌倦。决定选择冒险家的生活。

　　and for the next quarter century traveled extensively through Asia and South America 在随后的四分之一世纪里，他走遍了亚洲和南美洲，

　　with a succession of attractive female assistants whose jobs were inventively described as "historian and technicist" or "assistant in fish problems." 而且总是跟着一大串漂亮的女性当助手，美其名曰“历史学家兼技术员”或“鱼类问题助理”。

　　He supported these endeavors with a succession of popular books with titles like Edge of the Jungle and Jungle Days, 这些努力的结果，他写出了一系列通俗读物，题目有《丛林边缘》和《在丛林里的日子里》，

　　though he also produced some respectable books on wildlife and ornithology. 他还写了几本关于野生动物和鸟类学的不错的书。

　　In the mid-1920s, on a trip to the Galapagos Islands, he discovered "the delights of dangling," as he described deep-sea diving. 20世纪20年代中期，毕比前往加拉帕戈斯群岛。发现了他所谓的“悬荡的乐趣”，即深海潜水。

　　Soon afterward he teamed up with Barton, who came from an even wealthier family, had also attended Columbia, and also longed for adventure. 过不多久，他开始与巴顿合作。巴顿来自一个更加富裕的家庭，也上过哥伦比亚大学，也渴望冒险。