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It's an interesting
historical paradox that the inventor of the diving suit should
be from Espalion, an earth bound town, far from the sea. It's
moreover one of the local historical glories.
In fact, there are two, the Espalionnais,
Roucayrol and Denayrouze, who in 1864 invented the first
modern autonomous diving suit in the history of diving. They
didn't think of Cousteau or Nautilus, their objective was
to allow rescues in flooded mines, mines not so far away
seeing that they are situated at Decazeville.
All that explains therefore that we find
at Espalion a museum of diving suits that never fails to
intrigue the visitor. The
statue opposite, plunged into the Lot, is there to remind us
that the first autonomous diving suit had its first tests in
the Lot.
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Museum
of DIVING SUITS