40 INTRODUCTION. 



Video or the Cape of Good Hope cross it. Columbus, it is 

 well known, encountered most extensive banks, that im- 

 peded in some degree the progress of his vessels . If, how- 

 ever, we consider the general distribution of the three great 

 series, namely, the olive, the red, and the green, we learn 

 that the first increases as we approach the tropics ; that the 

 second chiefly abounds in the temperate zone ; while the 

 gi'een Algae greatly predominate in the Polar seas. The 

 Creator has assigned to each the peculiar kinds best suited 

 to the climate and other circumstances. 



In the Botany of the Antarctic Expedition of Sir James 

 Clarke Eoss, Dr. Hooker has given a miniature representa- 

 tion of a submarine forest of Lessonia and Macroci/stis, in- 

 habiting the south circumpolar seas, in which the trunks 

 of the former, growing under water in an erect position, are 

 from five to ten feet in height and of the thickness of the 

 human thigh. Thousands of these aquatic trees, uprooted 

 by the currents, are not unfrequently mistaken for drift-wood, 

 and collected for fuel. As an example of the gigantic growth 

 of Sea-weeds in this region. Dr. Hooker observes that the 

 Macrocystis luociirians, in its horizontal growth at the sur- 

 face of the ocean, ranges between 200 and 700 feet in 

 length, and that at the Falkland Islands the beach is lined 



