WONDERS OF THE DEEP 21 



was busily engaged in snapping photographs of 

 fish that swarmed in thousands about the apparatus. 



The idea of adapting the invention to the 

 purpose of taking motion pictures below the ocean 

 had not yet occurred to them, but a number of 

 exceptionally interesting submarine snapshots were 

 obtained, and the success that had attended their 

 first efforts convinced them of the great possibili- 

 ties of taking pictures in deep water, many fathoms 

 below the surface of the sea — something that had 

 never been done before. 



With an exposure of one-fiftieth of a second 

 or less, they found it possible to take perfectly 

 distinct pictures of various small fish — spot fish, 

 croakers, and other species ; and when George 

 Williamson dived down to a depth of thirty feet 

 and posed before the observation window, holding 

 in his hands a copy of a magazine, the under- 

 water picture was almost as good as if it had 

 been taken in the ordinary way in the daylight. 



This achievement was accomplished in the 

 summer of 1912, and in the autumn of the same 

 year the Williamson brothers exhibited their sub- 

 marine photographs in New York City at the 

 first International Motion Pictures Exposition, 

 where, as we should naturally expect, they caused 

 no little sensation, and attracted the attention and 

 aroused the interest of scientists from all parts of 

 the world. The possibilities of further develop- 

 ment occurred to several prominent business men, 

 and before long the two brothers found that they 



