The Mystery of Mound Key Review & Ratings

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The Mystery of Mound Key Review

The Man Who Rode Sharks was originally published in 1978 and is now republished by the Authors Guild Backinprint Editions through iUniverse.com, Inc. This book by Colonel William R. Royal (written with Robert F. Burgess) is about Royal's adventures and subsequent new discoveries in shark behavior and underwater archaeology. Actually, two stories in one, the first half of the book details Royal's work with sharks from the 1930s through the 1960s. He became fascinated with sharks from his first encounter with them in 1931 when he leaped into the water to catch a shark to feed his family during the Depression Years. During his travels in the military service he took up scuba diving and had more exciting encounters with them in the Pacific and Mediterranean Sea. After the war Royal was hired to capture sharks for a scientific laboratory. He became known as "the man who rode sharks" because that is what he did to capture them undamaged and alive. Usually he grabbed a nurse shark by the tail and let it drag him around until it tired (always making sure he stayed away from the head, of course). This enabled his catch to be loaded aboard a boat alive, a requirement requested by scientists doing research on squalene, a shark liver extract being investigated then as a possible cure for human cancer. The second half of the book is about Royal's most important contribution to science. When he moved to Florida in 1958, he became interested in Warm Mineral Springs and Little Salt Springs in the central part of the state. Up to this point no one had ventured very deep into these springs. Shortly after scuba gear became available in this country, Royal donned this equipment and started exploring these over 200-feet-deep springs. What he found there proved too unbelievable for the scientists of the day. Deep in Warm Mineral Spring beside prehistoric animal bones buried in mud on a forty-foot deep ledge, Royal found a human skull that carbon-dated to over 10,000 years old! And inside it was identifiable human brain material! Stalactites from the ceiling in the underwater spring indicated that this was once a dry cave, believed to date back to the last Ice Age. Since Early man was not thought to have been in Florida then, scientists of the day questioned the authenticity of these finds, especially since they had been made by an "amateur." Royal spent much of his life trying to persuade qualified underwater archaeologists to come to the spring and do a proper archaeological investigation of the sites. Eventually they did and toward the end of his life, the scientific community properly recognized the pioneering part Bill Royal played in these discoveries. Written in a narrative style by Robert Burgess, who dived these sites with Royal to photograph and record details of his achievements, he details Royal's incredible narrow escapes from sharks, cave-ins and dangerous depths. His style enables readers to relive the excitement of these adventures of a truly unique underwater pioneer. Anyone who thrives on fast-paced true adventure action will find this book a real hair-raiser!

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