Book review: The Explorer Gene, by Tom Cheshire

by Tom Cheshire
Short Books
3 stars
Kit Gillet

On January 23, 1960, Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard set down at the deepest depths of the ocean, 10,911 metres below the surface. Crammed into a glorified tin can built to withstand the crushing pressure of the water, he and a colleague achieved what he'd previously described as "the last great geographic conquest": to become the first men to reach the lowest depths possible on the planet. It was a feat that would not be repeated until 2012.

Waiting for Jacques' return were his father, Auguste Piccard, who had helped design the craft and had himself been the first man to fly a manned balloon kilometres up into the stratosphere, and his two-year-old son, Bertrand, who would later become the first person (again, with a colleague) to circumnavigate the globe in a non-stop balloon flight.

These three generations of Piccards helped push the boundaries of science, technology and exploration throughout the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. Their trials and tribulations are the stuff of legends, so it is apt that they are now chronicled in depth in a new book.