Thu Apr 17, 2014 1:17 pm
My copy is a first edition, published in 1960 by D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc, and simultaneously by D. Van Nostrand (Canada) Ltd., Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 60-15136, which is the nearest you're going to get to an ISBN number back then; ISBN numbers have only been around since 1965.
The copy on my bookshelf hasn't got a dust jacket because it wasn't bought new. The volume was purchased for $6.50 in a San Francisco used book store back in 1979, when I paid my first visit States-side from the UK. A very memorable visit, incidentally, taking in LA, Phoenix AZ, Las Vegas NV and Salt Lake City UT as well as "America's Favourite City".
I'm a vintage snorkeller, not a scuba diver, and I prize this book mainly for its chapters on "Basic Equipment" and "Survival in Cold Water - Rubber suits". The former has an excellent exposition of the differences between straight and offset bladed fins, backed up by a performance analysis of the two fin types in the Appendices with diagrams and tables of data. A very thorough investigation of fin dynamics, remarkable considering the book's publication date.
The chapter on exposure suits is equally thorough, exploring in great detail the donning, sealing and venting processes involved with neck-entry, front-entry and waist-entry drysuits. My interest in this chapter has grown since my purchase of an original Skooba-"totes" suit from the late 1950s or early 1960s. I occasionally snorkel in the North Sea with this suit as it is still fully functional. Roberts' extensive advice on such period drysuits contrasts with the amount of information available within many contemporary diving books, which often mention drysuits as a mere afterthought.