Bøker av Robert F Burgess

Exploring the Lure of the Labyrinth... Cave divers are a special breed. They are truly the elite. This is their story - a story of pushing technology and human endurance to the limit in what has been called "The Most Dangerous Sport in the World." Using words that put you right beside him, Burgess takes you on a harrowing journey from pioneering descents into submerged prehistoric dry caves last seen by man 20,000 years ago, to the most recent record-setting expeditions using Space-Age Computerized Rebreathers. With them you will explore one of the world's deepest and largest underwater caverns. Along the way you will glide to the ceiling of cathedral-sized rooms that contain a graveyard of mammoth and mastodon bones, and ponder how they got there. Then, you will go off on other underwater adventures, some frightening; some joyful and all of them exciting. For instance, ever wonder what it is like to get lost in a black underwater cavern when your flashlight dies and you are running out of air? Burgess sees to it that you experience it. He will also see that you go along with pioneer diver Bill Royal exploring a deep-water spring to recover a 10,000 year-old human skull with its brain still intact! Evidence so shocking scientists failed to believe it until carbon-dating and tissue analysis proved it to be true! But how? You learn how and why. And you also learn what happens at 230 feet down when you overstay your time and end up bent. The author who built his own diving gear out of a World War II gas mask to explore a shipwreck near Lake Michigan in 1944, and who years later received the prestigious SSI Platinum Pro 5000 certification for making over 5,000 verified dives, now shows you never seen before sunken caverns once inhabited by Ice Age Man. With him you will explore passages feeding the Bahamas Blue Holes, and read about record depth and horizontal penetrations where none have gone before in Mexico and Florida. In this book you too will begin to understand the lure of the labyrinth and learn of the thoughts and struggles of divers lost but to God. You will even join six divers who discover a long-sought difficult way into a dry cave underwater but lose their lifeline. Now, in this secret cavern, they realize they are the only ones in the world who know where they are and how they got there! Thrilling stuff. Best of all you will live through all of these adventures...and not even get wet! Though you may end up a little breathless. "... Those who think that exploring underwater caves is too exotic a pastime to be of much interest will change their minds after reading this work by Burgess... Of special poignancy is the author's recounting of the accidental death of a favorite diving companion. This is an interesting mix of adventure and archaeology that probes one of the earth's last frontiers."--Publishers Weekly "...it is easy to see why this book earned a 'Book of the Year' award from Forward Magazine... As a photographer, Burgess is able to add another dimension to this book... Burgess' photos cover many decades and many caves... Overall, the book is a delight, entertaining and an easy read. It's a great vacation book, full of adventure, divided into chapters that can easily stand alone or mesh together...[Burgess] masterfully glides the reader through tales of history that cavers and non-cavers will enjoy." Susan Brillhart Book Review IMMERSED. The International Technical Diving Magazine.

Man: 12,000 Years Under the Sea is the dramatic story of underwater archaeology. It starts when Greek sponge divers discover ancient statues in the sea, and covers the history of marine archaeology from this early beginning to the present. It describes such things as the discovery of a primitive bronze device later believed to be a marvelous combination of cogs and wheels that was used as an early computer, one in use by Greek navigators 82 years before Christ! It takes us along with the earliest of wreck hunters whose efforts off North Africa reveal to them "The Cannons of the Gods." They are all here, searching out the unbelievable including modern day divers finding the remnants of a prehistoric forest, one the author photographed 52 feet under water that carbon-dated to over 30,000 years before present time! Even more intriguing are the dives of pioneer Bill Royal who first found and then urged scientists to investigate Ice Age Man's 12,000 year old remains deep down in once dry Florida springs where no one had ever been before. The reader joins that expedition recovering saber-tooth tiger skeletons among those of Early Man whose underwater cave wall contained the embedded hand-sized fossil tooth of a prehistoric shark over 50 feet long. After that we journey to the Greek Isles with Dr. George Bass and his divers to find and explore a 3,000 year old Bonze Age shipwreck with its cargo still intact. Later we dive warm tropical seas on a long lost Spanish treasure galleon, then join a crew in a submersible making their first dive to the long lost Monitor. And still later we follow scientists combing Loch Ness to discover something more than a monster exists there. Burgess writes of these adventures with the eye of one who was on hand to witness some of the earliest contemporary archaeological efforts to understand the meaning of these long overlooked mysteries. For example, how was it possible for searchers to recover a skull of an Ice Age cave man from the depths of a Florida spring only to find that it contained his brain still intact? Working closely with today's deep diving scientists Robert Burgess reveals answers to these and other mysteries that enable us to have a clearer view of Early Man and his world. You will find this photographically illustrated e-book an exciting read from beginning to end.: "In Man 12,000 Years Under the Sea Robert Burgess gives us a peek at the work done by sponge divers, treasure hunters and underwater archaeologists. The excitement and hazard of underwater exploration is so clearly described that I was tempted to get a diving suit to join them." -- The Sacramento Bee [This book] is more than intriguing, it is a necessity." --Mensa Bulletin "Man: 12,000 Years Under the Sea will appeal to all readers who like action and adventure." --Publisher's Weekly

"After discovering a treasure map scratched on an old telescope, Shandy and Jib enlist the aid of their old friend Jackson and his houseboat to track down the hidden treasure. The adventurers find themselves shipwrecked on the Florida Gulf Coast, pursued by pirates, and stuck in a swamp before finally encountering the strange sea creature that guards the treasure."--Cover.

A Swiss youth guides an Andes expedition in search of a treasure secreted by the Incas hundreds of years earlier.