Narrative of Bahama Expedition. 201 



the students more than these trips to the outer reefs. With 

 the aid of the ■• water-glass." which is nothing more nor less 

 than a glass-bottomed bucket, every detail of the sub-marine 

 scene could be discerned almost as clearly as if one were look- 

 ing into air rather than water, so exquisitely transparent is 

 the sea around these islands. The bottom of the water-ijlass 

 is sunk just a little beneath the surface, the bucket being 

 held right side up. All the ripples are thus destroyed, with 

 their attendant confusing reflections, and everv object is as 

 sharply defined as in the upper air. The scene thus revealed 

 is one of such surpassing beauty that a poet, rather than a nat- 

 uralist, should undertake its description. Great heads of 

 massive coral rise almost to the surface, covered with living 

 and expanded polyps. ^Miniature trees in the form of branch- 

 ing madrepores, with fantastically spreading fronds, often 

 appear attached to the coral heads. Here and there patches 

 of sandv bottom reveal clumps of yellow and red sea-fans, 

 nestling in sheltered nooks. Long, graceful sea-feathers and 

 sea-whips wave their flexible branches in answer to the gentle 

 undulations of the water. Old masses of coral rock, carved 

 into fantastic similitude of castle and arch and j^rotto bv the 

 action of waves and a host of rock-boring animals, are the 

 homes of innumerable animal and vegetable forms, draped 

 with the fronds of alga' until they resemble some great rock- 

 ery overgrown with ferns. In and out of these caverns, and 

 through the silent groves of madrepores and sea-fans, glide 

 troops of strangely shaped and brilliantly colored tropical 

 hshes. Surely Solomon in all his glor^• was not arraved like 

 one of these! The most vivid reds, yellows and blues in 

 sharpest contrasts of bands and stripes and blotches, reveal 

 the ver}' abandonment with which Nature lavishes adorn- 

 ment on her finny tribes. In sheltered nooks, between coral 

 masses, the anemones fairlv revel in o'orgeous mimicrv of daisv 

 and dandelion, pink and aster and chrysanthemum, of the 

 upper world. In this strange realm even the worms take 

 shapes of grace and loveliness, rivaling the anemones in the 

 beauty of their flower-like whorls of tentacles. In this water- 



