Rhodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 19. May, 1917. No. 221. 
THE SARGASSO SEA. 
FRANK S. COLLINS. 
THERE seems to have always been some fascination about the 
Sargasso Sea, inducing people who had practically no knowledge of it 
to publish extensively in regard to it. The character of such publica- 
tions ranges from Janvier’s amusing and quite Munchausenish story ! 
to Otto Kuntze’s less interesting but no more trustworthy work °? 
It has been described by older authors as a vast meadow, with an 
area larger than the whole of Germany, the dense vegetation seriously 
impeding the progress of vessels. “(Crescit in omnibus fere rupibus 
aqua marina apertis circa Jamaicam, aliisque Americae pluribus, unde 
a fluctibus abruptum, magnamque partem maris Americani borealis 
implet, ut pratum viride diceret spectator remotus.” * Kuntze and 
others consider it as consisting only of fragments of algae, torn from 
the shores of the West Indies, decaying and soon sinking. Most 
recent authors have held a more or less modified form of the latter 
theory, but Sauvageau * has shown its impossibility, and Bérgesen * has 
brought together the more important data of previous authors, add- 
ing his own observations in several times crossing the Sargasso Sea, and 
reaching the conclusion that the plant in question, whatever its remote 
1 T. A. Janvier, In the Sargasso Sea. New York. 1898. 
2 Otto Kuntze, Revision von Sargassum und das sogenannte Sargasso-Meer. Engler’s Bot. 
Jahrb., Vol. I, 1881. 
3 Linnaeus, Hortus Cliffortianus, p. 478, 1737. 
4 C. Sauvageau, Le Sargassum bacciferum, la mer des Sargasse et l’'Océanograpbie. Comptes 
Rendus de la Soc. de Biologie, Vol. LXII, p. 1082, 1907. 
5 F. Bérgesen, The species of Sargassum found along the shores of the Danish West Indies, 
with remarks upon the floating forms of the Sargasso Sea. Mindeskrift for Japetus Steenstrup, 
no. 32, 1914. 
