Santa Catalina

an island off the coast of California. It is one of the Santa Barbara Islands. It is separated from the mainland by a channel. The island is twenty five miles long and about four miles wide. It is hilly, well wooded, and is a noted summer resort. The floor of the sea surrounding the land supports a submarine forest of kelp, the ribbon-like leaves of which rise and fold and unfold in the water, affording an abiding place for countless animals of the sea. The kelp viewed in the sunlight forms a beautiful picture of olive and amber in the blue turquoise of the water. Tourists are taken about by guides in glass-bottomed boats. As the boat moves slowly over the kelp beds the passenger is able to study the sea like an aquarium. The glass bottom magnifies like the lens of a microscope. The kelp waves its long ribbons and the giant California starfish, the sea-cucumber, the octopus feeling about with its tentacles, the angel-fish of livid red, the phosphorescent jellyfish with tentacles fifteen feet long, crabs, squids, and fishes, black, red, yellow, and white, swim about in kaleidoscopic combinations of color as naturally and unconcernedly as goldfish in a parlor globe. It is said that $100,000 is invested in these boats. They range in size from skiffs to side-wheeled steamers valued at $3,000. Tourists go by car from Los Angeles to the seashore. As passengers step from the train they are greeted, not by, "Cab, sir; this way for all parts of the city," but by, "Here you are! Marine Jimmie's boat, only fifty cents." "Take the Cleopatra!" "Right away for the Marine Gardens!"

Santa Claus. See Nicholas; Saint