84 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



Harbour was estimated at more than three hundred 

 feet ; but by far the largest seen during the Antarctic 

 expedition were amongst the first of any extraordi- 

 nary length which the ships encountered, and they 

 were not particularly noticed, from the belief that the 

 report of upwards of one thousand feet was true, or, 

 at any rate, that better opportunities of testing its 

 truth would arise in the course of a three-years 

 voyage than the first week of our explorations could 

 afford. These occurred in a strait between two of the 

 Crozct Islands, where, very far from either shore, in 

 Avhat is believed to be forty-fathom water, somewhat 

 isolated stems of Macrocystis rose at an angle of 45° 

 from the bottom, and streamed along the surface for 

 a distance certainly equal to several times the length 

 of the Erebus ; data which, if correct (and we believe 

 them so), give the total length of the stems as about 

 seven hundred feet. 



" That isolated patches of weed should rise through 

 such a volume of water is not incompatible with the 

 statements we have elsewhere made, that eight or ten 

 fathoms is the utmost depth at which, judging by our 

 experience, submerged sea-weed vegetates in the 

 Southern Temperate, and Antarctic Ocean. These 

 exceptional cases are probably due to the parent 

 plant having attained such a size in its birthplace 

 near shore, as to weigh its stony moorings, and 

 deposit itself in deeper water, where an increase of 

 the roots would unite the original base to other 

 rocks, and thus gain a footing that defies the power of 

 the elements." ^ 



' Hooker, "Cryptogamia Antarctica," p. 157, (1845.) 



