N a special salon at Chicago there was recently placed on exhibition a collection of what are, undoubtedly, the most unique paintings in the world. They are unparalleled in art in that they were painted literally at the bottom of the ocean.

The founder of the new school of submarine painting is Zarh Howlison Pritchard, an Irishman by birth, now residing at Pasadena, California. He spends a good part of each summer at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of southern California painting pictures of the ocean's bed and the creatures that inhabit the water.

Mr. Pritchard works in a way easy enough to understand. He has devised an extraordinary set of apparatus in order to paint pictures under the water. Sometimes he goes down in an ordinary diving suit, furnished with a pair of

pearl diver's goggles. At other times he wears a diver's helmet, which is connected with the upper air by means of a rubber tube. He uses a drawing board made of glass and paper which has been soaked in cocoanut oil to make it waterproof. French waterproof paints and a heavy weight, to keep him at the bottom, complete his outfit. Nothing more is needed, except the courage to descend, the ability to select what to sketch and to sketch it quickly. Nature and practice have given these to Mr. Pritchard, who, however, was years in thinking out ways and means.

Of course, Mr. Pritchard does not finish his paintings beneath the water. He makes sketches in crayons for them there, transcribing form, noting color, diagraming fish, feeling for the precise color harmony that can never be wholly brought from the depths, then ascends to

A SUBMARINE "GROVE" OFF THE CALIFORNIA COAST,

fix the scene enduringly in his studio. This he does on leather. On leather alone, says the artist, can he reproduce anything like the tone of the sea. With what perfection the medium adapts itself to the subject, one must see to realize. It is almost unbelievable how the surface of the leather holds the pigments and gathers light and depths, perfectly interpretative of deep water.

He has tried canvas but there he loses the delicate blur, which in the sea takes the place of atmosphere. Instead of oil, he uses powdered colored chalk mixed with spirits of resin, in proportions found by long experiment. That mixture, besides being durable, gives the veil-like aspect that lies over everything submarine. Thus the picture is a thing apart; painted with new colors on a novel material, of a huge, dim, nearby world, where man is a stranger.

As a boy, Mr. Pritchard spent his summers on the northeast coast of Scotland. The rough sports he shared with his fellows there led him into deep water. One of their favorite games was our own boys' game of "tag," adapted, as a race of vikings might adapt it, to use in and under water.

there soon came to him the power to remain under water for many seconds and the ability to observe quickly and with precision. It was the wonderful tones, in blue and green, the bodies of his swimming playmates took on that first drew the boy's attention to the beauties of the submerged world. little later, the object that fascinated him was a group of fir trees washed down from the mountains in the great springtime freshets. These trees lay in deep water and had become the center of a mass of new vegetation, and here, again, the dominant attraction was color. The greens of the firs were so modified and blended with the diffused sunlight, and the sunlight so broken by the waving mass of growing weeds, that a thousand and one colors and new harmonies were revealed to the sensitive eye of the untrained boy.

Day after day he made his descents to study his firs, and day after day, in calm and storm, in sun and cloud, he caught his impressions, and the marvelous thing was that never were two alike. It was this mutable beauty that was so fascinating, and through the years it urged him, wherever he was, by lake or sea, to take opportunity to view the depths for his own pleasure and without any idea of painting them.

In the meantime, as an art student, he had drifted to landscape work. He had also begun seeking a means for coloring leather. Then he began to indicate on this medium what he remembered of the things he had seen under water. First results were so grotesque that people laughed at him. When he took a number of his paintings to London, the critics pronounced them monstrous and advised the young artist to go home and paint something that people liked to see. "You paint for London as if you thought it was inhabited by fishes," cried one of them, as he looked through the water at the bases of the basalt pillars of the Giant's Causeway, which rise from the ocean at the entrance to the Irish Sea. In his disappointment young Pritchard actually thought of suicide.

To take his thoughts off morbidity he spent almost his last shilling to see Bernhardt, who was at that time playing

perfect, he thought, but one of her gowns, a robe designed for a sea sorceress, lacked something. The young artist, who knew the strange colors of the sea as perhaps no one else did, instantly resolved to tell her what it needed. After repeated efforts he finally secured an interview.

Before he had spoken twenty words Bernhardt's enthusiasm equaled his, and in

five minutes she had ordered Salome's jewels from designs which he made on visiting cards. The great woman saw that he knew the sea, and she probably divined that he was penniless. She gave him twenty pounds as an advance on the jewels which were to look like the sea. Later, when he told her that he had made pictures of the world beneath the water, her imagination was kindled and when she saw the paintings she immediately bought two of them.

About this time the young artist's health failed and he was forced to leave England. He had learned from Darwin that the most marvelous coral formations

and this led him to go to Tahiti. Here he took up actively the work of painting under water.

The use of a glass drawing board was suggested by a contrivance employed by the South Sea pearl divers-a small glass-bottomed box with a place cut out at the top so that it can be gripped by the teeth, thereby permitting the swimmer free use of his arms. By means of this device there is always a calm space under the glass, and it is possible for the user to view, in that way, the depths of the water in which he is swimming. Mr. Pritchard used this contrivance to locate the particular place he desired to sketch, and pearl diver's goggles to see after reaching the bottom. These goggles, which are merely bits of cow horn cut and shaped to fit the eyes, permit a small

HAVE YOU YOUR SHARE?

HAVE

AVE you a minimum of $11 in your pockets, and at least $46 in some bank-savings, state, national, or postal savings? If not, some one else has what officially should be yours. The general stock of money in the United States June 30 last, was $3,648,800,000. Of this amount, $1,720,700,000, or more than 47 per cent was in circulation among the people of the United States. This was nearly $11 in each pocket for every man, woman and child. There was deposited in the banks of the country $1,563,800,000 nearly 43 per cent and the balance, $364,300,000, was in the Treasury of the United States. This was actual cash, represented in gold and silver coin.

CHICKENS POLISH GEMS

AMAN in Yavapai County, near Pres

cott, Arizona, has discovered an original way of polishing precious stones. He owns a mica mine

and though the mica is of little value com

mercially owing to its small size, it is embedded with Arizona rubies and

emeralds.

As he was dressing a chicken for market, he noticed the fine polish on the shale and other bits of rock in its gizzard. Thinking to put this to some use, he made an experiment. Before this he had sent the gems away to be polished, but now he selected his chickens for next week's market, tagged them, and placed a tray of uncut stones before them which they greedily gobbled as some new delicacy.

Upon examining the stones the next week he found that they had a finer finish and had taken on a more delicate color than he had been able to obtain by any other process that he was acquainted with.

THE HE most luxurious touring car ever built was recently constructed by the president of a Canadian automobile company. It looks like a Pullman car, and has sleeping accommodations for nine persons, including two servants. For short trips, in which sleeping quarters are not required, it accommodates twenty-five persons.

advice of Frank Harris, the instructor in clay modeling, to complete it. Williamson will be paid for his work.

First, a topographic map showing all the elevations of the campus was made. This also included all the dimensions of every building and of other details. Then these elevations were reproduced in clay and a model taken in plaster of Paris The buildings, walks, and trees were then added. To make the miniature buildings -twenty-one in all-a separate cast for every side of each building was made, first by hand. Then, when the castings were taken out, they had to be finished by hand, carefully, and the sides put together. The trees and shrubs, made of fine coiled wire covered with green shavings, required careful work. Finally, the windows and vines were painted on the buildings.

Young Williamson is naturally pleased with the results of his labor and expects to continue this sort of work.

The car contains chauffeur's quarters, a ladies' stateroom, six feet square, with berths for five people; a second stateroom of the same dimensions, providing for four; a kitchenette and toilet room. Besides this, there is an observation platform at the rear. The central stateroom is the dining room as well, having two three-foot extension tables with a width of nineteen inches, while a folding desk makes it convenient for correspondence. The kitchenette is equipped with a complete outfit for preparing and serving meals, even a refrigerator being included. The crockery is protected from breakage by separate compartments for every piece.

In traveling by night, the car presents a bright spectacle with lights blazing from the ten side windows, while six lights shine from the front and four from