NOVEL POST OFFICE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4220, 6 December 1939, Page 9

NOVEL POST OFFICE

UNDER THE SEA. A submarine post office—the only one in the world —• was officially opened on August 16, near Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas Islands in the West Indies. It is situated in the Williamson “photosphere,” the large windowed chamber reached from the surface of the sea by a flexible tube, which Mr John Everest Williamson, the under-seas explorer, uses for taking photographs and cinema films of fish and the coral forests on the sea bed. Visitors are now to descend into the “photosphere” so that they may have a closer view of the wanders of the sea bed than can be obtained from the glass-bottomed boats that have hitherto been provided for them. The official name of this submarine post office is Sea Floor, Bahamas. A special postage stamp designed from one of Mr Williamson’s underseas photographs, with the head of King George inset will be sold at this post office. The first letters posted after the official opening were addressed to King George and President Roosevelt by Mr J. H. Jarrett, Acting Governor of the Bahamas. The object of opening a post office in the “photosphere” is to enable visitors to mail letters describing their impressions as the “photosphere” moves a,long the coral reefs and the rainbowhued tropical fish. Arrangements are being made for broadcasting from the “photosphere” by scientists and distinguished visitors, describing the wonders of the sea.