GLASS-BOTTOMED VESSELS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 94, 20 April 1912, Page 4

GLASS-BOTTOMED VESSELS.

at end eel for the use of pleasure paries who desire to view the beauties of be marine growth off the coast ol 'alifornia, a contract is reported to iare been placed for the construction •f a glass-bottomed boat. The boat ;ill be 105 feet long, and will bo quipped with two 100 h.p. four-cylin-ler engines. Glass-bottomed boats have been in use at Avalon, Catalina Islands, for many years. Since their advent in Southern California those boats have found imitators in Florida and elsewhere. Externally the typical glass-bottomed vessel looks luce any other excursion launch. in the keel line, forward and abalt the machinery space, runs a trough, the sides of which have been painted black to screen the reflection of I no water at the bottom of the boat. I n bottom is sealed by a simple pane ol glass, usually an inch in thick ms: and perfectly plain, so as not to mug nify the objects seen through it lithe waters below. Never as yet has such, a pane of glass been known in break. Should such a casualty occur, the system of watertight hatches, provided at the sides of the trough, would obviate all danger on tins score, as they could bo scaled before the

water had had time to endanger tin stability of the boat. Keen rowin;. boats are now being built with ghis; bottoms, thus doing away with iac old-fashioned method os scanning tin deep by holding a glass-bottomed into the water over the sides or tin craft.