304 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



in all probability is nearly one hundred thousand dol- 

 lars; and the income is a good and increasing one, due 

 to the fact that the attractive island of Santa Catalina 

 is the Mecca for thousands of tourists annually, most 

 of whom go out in the glass-bottomed boats. 



When you land in the beautiful Bay of Avalon, 

 about thirty miles from Los Angeles, you are met, 

 not by hackmen, but by men with glass-bottomed 

 boats. "Here you are! Marine Jimmie's boat." 

 "Take the Cleopatra !^^ or "Right away now for the 

 Empress and the Marine Gardens!" The ocean steamer 

 is met in the bay by these strange craft, which look like 

 the old-fashioned river side-wheelers. Some of these 

 boats are made on the island, and range from row- 

 boats with glass bottoms to large side-wheel steamers 

 valued at thirty thousand dollars. There is a fleet of 

 them, big and little, and they skim over the kelp beds, 

 and have introduced an altogether new variety of 

 entertainment and zoological study combined. 



The boat is made by having the bottom to the 

 extent of the boards beside the keel to the width of 

 three feet from bow to stern replaced by thick plate- 

 glass, set inside of a raihng so that the glass cannot 

 touch the bottom; even if it did, the observer looks 

 down through a well, his elbows comifortably resting 

 on the padded edge. As the boat moves slowly along, 

 every object on the bottom can be distinctly seen, as 

 the glass magnifies it. 



The submarine scenery is particularly attractive 

 here. The entire island, nearly sixty miles around, 

 is lined with a forest of Nereocystis, or kelp, a huge 

 vine, v/hose leaves rise and fold and unfold in the 

 water, the abiding-place of countless animals of all 



