Gilbert Patten

“ It was like fairyland, that landscape on the bed of the sea.
"Beats anything I ever seen!" whispered the entranced Hiram. "If a mermaid was to float up to the glass bottom of this here boat and shake a finger at me, I'd go right over the side and join her in them pretty gardens."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Clancy. "Look at the rocks and shells! You can see them as clearly as though they were out of the water and on the land."
"Them forests," explained Ike, "are made of kelp. From kelp is where we get our iodine of commerce. It takes four hundred pounds of kelp to make one pound of iodine." ”

“ Clancy and Hill, peering through the glass bottom of the boat, saw a human form glide gracefully to a point directly underneath, turn over on its back, and float face upward, full a dozen feet below the surface. ”

“ Why don't they leave it where it is, to please the eye that looks down through these glass-bottom boats?"
"I pass," answered Ike wearily. "I ain't no philosopher, that-a-way. Kelp's no good and iodine's useful—that's all I know. Diver's goin' over and comin' this way," he added, with sudden animation. "Watch close, now, and maybe you'll see him pick up an abalone shell, and look up and make faces. It's right remarkable how long some o' them divers can stay under the water. Look sharp!"
Clancy and Hill looked sharp, but they couldn't see anything of the diver. ”