ILLUSTRATIONS (7). FUCUS BANKS. 49 



in which are associated coniferous trees, birches, and willows, 

 produce a less striking uniformity than do these thalassophytes. 

 Our heaths present in the north not only the predominating 

 Calluua vulgaris, but also Erica tetralix, E. ciliaris, and E. 

 cinerea; and in the south, Erica arborea, E. scoparia, and 

 E. Mediterranea. The uniformity of the view presented by 

 the Fucus natans is incomparably greater than that of any 

 other assemblage of social plants. Oviedo calls the fucus 

 banks " meadows," praderias de yerva. If we consider that 

 Pedro Yelasco, a native of the Spanish harbour of Palos, by 

 following the flight of certain birds from Fayal, discovered 

 the Island of Flores as early as 1452, it seems almost impos- 

 sible, considering the proximity of the great fucus bank of 

 Corvo and Flores, that no part of these oceanic meadows 

 should have been seen before the time of Columbus by Por- 

 tuguese ships driven westward by storms. 



We learn, however, from the astonishment of the com- 

 panions of the admiral, when they were continuously sur- 

 rounded by sea- grass from the 16th of September to the 8th 

 of October, 1492, that the magnitude of the phenomenon 

 was at that period unknown to mariners. In the extracts 

 from the ship's journal given by Las Casas, Columbus cer- 

 tainly does not mention the apprehensions which the accumu- 

 lation of sea-weed excited, or the grumbling of his companions. 

 He merely speaks of the complaints and murmurs regarding 

 the danger of the very weak but constant east winds. It was 

 only his son, Fernando Colon, who in the history of his 

 father's life, endeavoured to give a somewhat dramatic delinea- 

 tion of the anxieties of the sailors. 



According to my researches, Columbus made his way 

 through the great fucus bank in the year 1492, in latitude 

 28^°, and in 1493, in latitude 37°, and both times in tbe 

 longitude of 38°-41°. This can be established with tolerable 

 certainty from the estimation of the velocity recorded by 

 Columbus, and "the distance daily sailed over;" not indeed 

 by dropping the log, but by the information afforded by the 

 running out of half- hour sand-glasses {ampolletas) . The first 

 certain and distinct account of the log, {catena delta pojypa,) 

 w r hichl have found, is in the year 1521, in Pigafetta's Journal 

 of Magellan's Circumnavigation of the World.* The deter- 

 * See Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 631, and note; Bohn's edition. 



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