The Sargasso Sea. 



In the western Atlantic, between the West Indies and the Azores and to the south of 

 Bermuda, from longitude 45° to SO^W. and latitude 20° to So^N., extends the Sargasso Sea 

 with its " submerged and bottomless " meadows. It is surrounded by currents; to the north 

 by the blue waters of the Gulf Stream that flow towards Newfoundland; to the south by the 

 Equatorial Current, moving towards the Caribbean Sea. An immense deep-sea landscape 

 extends below the brown algae at depths from 2,200 to 3,300 fathoms. Here is the bottom of 

 that basin-like formation of the abyssal waters that is filled with equatorial waters. At a 

 depth of about 1,350 fathoms the temperature is about lO^C. and about IS^C. at 270 fathoms. 

 This region is rarely disturbed. Currents surround without penetrating it and storms are 

 broken by the dense masses of marine vegetation. 



We should have to go far into the past to seek those navigators who, venturing towards 

 the west, were the first to be amazed by this immense expanse of brown seaweeds. If the 

 inhabitants of Atlantis were hardy seafarers, as told in the priestly legend of Sais and in Plato's 

 Dialogue, they must have left their archipelago (now drowned by the waters and represented 

 only by Madeira and the Canaries) to discover the unknown western lands. Perhaps their 

 ships would have stopped in the face of these floating meadows. 



The Phoenicians, who were steeped in these traditions, would undoubtedly have tacked 

 towards the west, but with their usual mysterious and discreet ways, would not have reported 

 these episodes. The Arab sailors, who told their geographers of the existence of the great 

 island of Antilia and went in search of Saint-Brandan's Land, doubtless knew this part of the 

 Ocean Sea where marine plants blocked the path of galleys and where fabulous monsters reared 

 out of the water. Columbus, who took advantage of the experiences of Basque pilots in the 

 rediscovery of America, was nearly stopped on his voyage by a mutiny among the crew, who, 

 seeing the sea covered with coastal seaweeds on which crabs were moving about, refused to go 

 further so as not to run risks from unseen reefs. Finally, it is to the bold Portuguese sailors 

 of the 16th century that we owe some real information concerning this marine region which 

 they called the Sargasso Sea. The monsters of the ocean have vanished into the past and marine 

 plants no longer impede the oars of galleys. As it is off their route, modern ships rarely spoil 

 the calm of this plant landscape by the churning of their screws. 



In appearance sargassum weeds are so like coastal brown seaweeds that they were for long 

 believed to be algae torn from the American coasts and carried out to sea by the Florida Current. 

 But the studies of algologists have definitely shown that these are purely pelagic plants. They 

 grow and reproduce in the open sea, thus excluding the former idea of a collection of plant 

 remains. At first, they were grouped together by botanists under the name Sargassum bacci- 

 ferum, but the supposed berries of sargassum weeds are really groups of stalked floats. Recep- 

 tacles that are the reproductive organs have been found in other parts of the plants in a mature 

 state. Botanists now distinguish eight species, which are, moreover, very close to one another. 

 Their origin is unknown. Certain characters, such as the presence of a kind of central stalk, 

 would lead one to suppose that they were once attached algae. But where did they come from? 

 We do not know, for they are neither found off continental sea-shores nor around archipelagos. 

 They must surely have evolved a long time ago. 



The Sargasso Sea gives very much the appearance of a coastal habitat in the open Atlantic, 

 and the error of Columbus' sailors is quite excusable. In regions where the algae are very 

 thick and massed level with the surface, crabs, that do not belong to swimming species, may 

 be seen scuttling about. Tube-dwelling worms, such as Spirorbis and colonies of hydroids are 

 as numerous on Sargassum " leaves " as on those of wracks ( Fucus) from European coasts. 

 Some insects have even become adapted to this marine life and jump from clump to clump. 

 And the fish fauna entirely confirms the coastal nature of this environment. As in a bed of 

 Zostera grass, tube-mouth fishes, such as pipe-fishes (Syngnalhus pelagicus) and sea-horses 

 (Hippocampus ramulus) are found. A small monacanthid of the trigger-fish family, rounded 

 and flattened and with a large spine behind the eyes, gently moves and grazes among the clumps 

 of seaweeds just like its relatives do in coastal regions of the tropics. Another equatorial 



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