256 NOTES ON THE BOTANY 
much like it. In short, the whole catalogue of species does 
not exceed sixteen or eighteen, including some Mosses and a 
beautiful lichen, which inhabits the rocks higher up than any 
other, nor is there the least approach to a shrub in the whole 
country.’ ” 
But to return to our voyagers. The “Erebus and Ter- 
ror,” having quitted the Cape of Good Hope on the 6th of 
April, 1840, spent from the 12th to the 17th of that month 
in crossing the Agulhas Bank, which afforded ample scientific 
occupation, in its immense masses of Macrocystis pyrifera; 
(that enormous seaweed, supposed to be the longest vegeta- 
ble production in the world, Sir Joseph Banks having judged — 
that, in the Great Pacific Ocean, it attains an extent a 
1,500 yards), and in the great variety of marine animals 
which this 4/ga harbored. On the 21st they passed to the 
southward of Marion Island, formed of flat terraces of vol- jf. 
canic rock, with high, cone-shaped, often red mountains, —— 
towering to a considerable elevation. Colonies of Penguins - 
were on all the shores. The “Erebus” was hove to, With — 
the intention of landing next morning, and they began dredg- - 
ing in 96 fathoms, between Marion and Prince Edward’s 
Islands. The dredge came up, filled with white coral aad 
thirty-seven distinct species of marine animals. Next morn- | 
ing, however, the voyagers found themselves driven so far to — 
* This gigantic seaweed is found throughout the Great Pacific Ocean, — 
and in the Atlantic from the equator to the 45th degree south latitude + 
but its length may perhaps be greatly over-estimated, judging by. 
observation made by M. Gaudichaud, the botanist to Freycinet’s voyage. 
. He says, that ** when near Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands, the ship 
steered through wide banks of Macrocystis pyrifera. Two-thirds of oe 
Plant, obeying the laws of specific gravity, floated in a perpendicular p 
sition, not however attached to the bottom of the ocean: and this uP- 
right position has perhaps induced the belief that the extraordinary 
seaweed in question grew at an immeasurable distance from the surface: 
+ In the excellent Admiralty Chart of the South Pole all the place 
here mentioned may be seen accurately laid down, together with = 
tracks of H.M. Discovery Ships in 1840, 41, and 42, till their arrival at 
the Falklands. a 
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