Wonders of the Sea

The ocean depths off the Bahamas are explored in an unusual expedition with the aid of a submarine chamber of Williamson's invention. John Ernest Williamson and his assistant are accompanied by a painter and a cameraman, plus two swimmers and a child to give the film an added element of fiction. The aim was to explore the ocean floor with the aid of an innovative spherical observation chamber, the photosphere, at a depth of 12 m. The photosphere had a thick glass window and was connected to the mother ship via a deep-sea tube for communication and air supply. From inside the photosphere, the painter with his palette and the cameraman with his 35mm could create unprecedented underwater panoramas nearly 40 years before Jacques-Yves Cousteau launched Denise in 1959. The film is an early milestone in underwater motion pictures. It combines documentary and fiction, akin to Jules Verne and Georges Méliès.