Beebe, William

William Beebe, in full Charles William Beebe, (born July 29, 1877, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—died June 4, 1962, Simla Research Station, near Arima, Trinidad), American biologist, explorer, and writer on natural history who combined careful biological research with a rare literary skill. He was the coinventor of the bathysphere.

Beebe was curator of ornithology at the New York Zoological Gardens from 1899 and director of the department of tropical research of the New York Zoological Society from 1919. He led numerous scientific expeditions abroad and in 1934 with Otis Barton descended in his bathysphere to a then record depth of 3,028 feet (923 metres) in Bermuda waters. A noted lecturer, he received numerous prizes and honours for scientific research and for his books, both technical and popular. His books include Jungle Days (1925), Pheasants, Their Lives and Homes (1926), Beneath Tropic Seas (1928), Half Mile Down (1934), High Jungle (1949), The Edge of the Jungle (1950), and Unseen Life of New York (1953).