Show n Flowers Shipped in Ice Unique Bouquet from Australia Received Re-ceived at His London Residence by Joseph Chamberlain London Sitting in his library at 40 Princes gardens Joseph Chamberlain Chamber-lain was presented with a bouquet of strange but beautiful blooms Picked over 11000 miles away they had traveled half round the globe before be-fore reaching tho politician In his home With Sir Gerald Strickland governor gov-ernor of Western Australia lies the credit of the charming Idea of sending send-ing this bouquet from a fur off land Ho and Mr Chamberlain had exchanged ex-changed letters Sir Gerald had eulogized eulo-gized the brilliant colorings of the flowers of Western Australia Time result was the plan to send a collection I collec-tion of blooms to Mr Chamberlain so that ho might Inspect them at his i leisure and contrast their brilliance with tho winter gloom without The problem naturally was how to preserve the freshness of the flowers during their long Journey Sir Gerald Strickland hit upon the Idea of sending send-ing them Ever to England In Ice Eight specimens both of flowers and shrubs were carefully picked In the neighborhood of Perth Western Australia Aus-tralia Then they were frozen Into the heart of blocks of Ice and packed in a special case and deposited In tho hold of the steamship Ophlr When the case came to ho delivered at Princes gardens the flowers wore still frozen deep in the Ice And by the evening the ice bad not melted away although the blocks woro visibly vis-ibly shrinking Whr UK butler presented the flow II II ers to Mr Chamberlain they were still In their shroud of Ice but the Ice resembled panels of glass and was perfectly transparent revealing all the beauty of tho flowers In their original freshness There was the Rlclnocarpus glaucus a charming pink aster like a flower shrub There was also tho Southern cross a snow wjilte flower There was tho candolea a beautiful yellow flowering shrub In tho bouquet also were tho boronla a striking rod shrub thc mesembryanthemum elegance red the cynaphea polymorpha white tho Banshee three species red and yellow and the nnlgozanthui or kangaroo paw three species |