18'^'t-] GREAT SEA-WEED. 



239 



individual animals than any other station. There is one marine 

 production, which from its importance is worthy of a particular 

 history. It is the kelp, or Macrocystis pyrifera. This plant 

 groMs on every rock from low-water mark to a great depth, 

 both on the outer coast and within the channels.* I believe' 

 during the voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, not one rock 

 near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed by this 

 floating weed. The good service it thus affords to vessels navi- 

 gating near this stormy land is evident ; and it certainly has 

 saved many a one from being wrecked. I know few thino-g more 

 surprising than to see this plant growing and flourishing amidst 

 those great breakers of the western ocean, which no mass of rock 

 let It be ever so hard, can long resist. The stem is round,' 

 slimy, and smooth, and seldom has a diameter of so much as an 

 inch. A few taken together are sufliciently strong to support 

 the weight of the large loose stones, to which in the inland chan- 

 nels they grow attached ; and yet some of these stones were so 

 heavy that when drawn to the surface, they could scarcely be 

 lifted into a boat by one person. Captain Cook, in his second 

 voyage, says, that this plant at Kerguelen Land rises from a 

 greater depth than twenty-four fathoms ; " and as it does not 

 grow in a perpendicular direction, but makes a very acute angle 

 with the bottom, and much of it afterwards spreads many fathoms 

 on the surface of the sea, I am well warranted to say that some 

 of it grows to the length of sixty fathoms and upwards." I do 

 not suppose the stem of any other plant attains so great a length 

 as three hundred and sixty feet, as stated by Captain Cook. 

 Captain Fitz Roy, moreover, found it growing f up from the 



* Its geographical range is remarkably wide; it is found from the 

 extreme southern islets near Cape Horn, as far nokh on the eastern coas^ 

 (accordmg to information given me by Mr. Stokes) as lat 4^-X 

 on the western coast, as Dr. Hooker tells me, it extends to the R San 

 Francisco in California, and perhaps even to K;mtschatka We thus have 

 an immense range m latitude; and as Cook, who must have been well 

 rn'on^tude^ '^'''''' '"""^ '' ^' ^^rgaelen Land, no less than 74(1° 



t Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. i. p. 363.-It appears that sea- 

 roIdCT T'T-^' ^^'''^'; ^^^- Stephenson found (wfws Voyage 

 T u v^'^i'f '^' ^'?\- "• P- --^^ t^^t a rock uncovered only at sprinc-tidef 

 which had been chiselled smooth in November, on the follLi^g^May that' 

 wo Sr '^r'''^', afterwards, was thickly covered with FucSs dig t^t^ 

 two feet, and t. esculentus six ft-et, in length. uig.iaius 



