OF THE ANTARCTIC VOYAGE. 277 
(Berkeley Sound, Falkland Islands), in safety, without an 
individual on the sick list in either ship, on the 6th of April.” 
As might be supposed, the cruize above described could 
atford no opportunities for botanizing, but the time was im- 
proved by examining the New Zealand plants that had been 
collected. One curious fact, however, attracted the atten- 
tion of the naturalist, namely the existence and vegetation of 
two species of Algae, in the open sea and at an immense dis- 
tance from land. Almost every previous voyager has noticed 
the famous Sargasso weed, though to this present day, it con- 
tinues matter of dispute whether its enormous patches are 
propagated in the water, or at the bottom of the ocean. Very 
similar is the case with Macrocystis pyrifera and Laminaria 
(radiata ?), the two kinds of Sea-weed in question, which 
extend, in the southern regions, to the limits of the Antarctic 
circle; farther south, by two degrees, than any other vege- 
table production whatever. The former, Macrocystis, is the 
most abundant and was, at first, regarded as a good sign of 
the vicinity of land. It was, however, seen in all the lati- 
tudes which the Expedition traversed, from 35° to the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of ice, many hundreds of miles from 
any shore, in scattered masses, and these so large, fresh, and 
green, that it was impossible to conclude that either they had 
been recently torn from their native habitat, or that they 
were undergoing a slow death and a sure one. On several 
Occasions, specimens were picked up, generally with great 
difficulty in those tempestuous latitudes, and they were 
found, on examination, to be, in every respect, similar to such 
plants as were gathered in the bays ashore; not only grow- 
ing with the same vigour, but increasing ; the ends of the 
branches being furnished with delicate, broad, young, green 
leaves, of all sizes, separating after the manner so correctly 
described in Harvey’s Cape Flora. The enormous distance 
from any land, proved by the tracks of former voyagers and 
that of our Antarctic navigators, and the slowness of the 
currents near the places where these specimens were col- 
VOL. IL E Hf 
