WHEN flowers have been placed under water for a few hours they show a remarkable kind of beauty which can be seen in no other way. Plants, we know, are always exhaling oxygen gas from their leaves and flowers, but in our rooms and out of doors it is an invisible process. We know that this is the case from the testimony of scientists who have proved it by experiments.

We can, however, render the process visible by placing flowers under water, for we can then see the oxygen gas in the form of tiny pearls edging each leaf and petal, and streaming up in columns to the surface of the water.

I will try to describe how this effect can best be seen. Two or three well-contrasted flowers, such as a small white lily, some scarlet geranium, a few heaths, with maidenhair fern, and a little piece of arbor-vitÆ, or box, to form a dark background, may be tied together, and firmly affixed by string or wire to a piece of stone.

The other articles required are a soup plate, a glass shade, and a tub full of freshly drawn spring water. The shade should be about fourteen inches high, and wide enough to take in the bouquet we have made. The tub must be sufficiently large to allow the shade to be held upright under the water.

When all is ready, place the flowers and stone in the glass shade, held horizontally, and gradually sink it under water till the shade is quite full, place the soup plate at the open end, where the stone is, and slowly raise the glass until it is upright, and then it can be lifted out and placed on a table in a window where the sun or bright light will reach it. The bubbles of oxygen will begin to form in a few hours, and the jewelled effect of the bouquet will be very curious and lovely.

It will only last two days; after that time the water becomes cloudy, and decay begins. The flowers and greenery should be perfectly dry, and the water fresh and clear, and then, with a little dexterity, the experiment cannot fail. The remarkable beauty of a water bouquet, with its empearled leaves and flowers, surprises all who see it for the first time.

The fleeting flower of the night-blowing Cereus, which opens in the evening and usually closes in ten or twelve hours, can be preserved for double that time by placing it in water under a glass shade as I have described. Any flowers may be used for the purpose, but the best effect is obtained when only a few blossoms are grouped together, and plenty of space is left around them.