FOREIGN NOTICES. 



141 



er orders usually eat them ripe and roasted, and of 

 course those now sellinir arc last year's. The 

 Broad Beans sellinfj ready roasted in the streets are 

 as larije as our finest Windsor Beans. French 

 Beanslire much grown, hut are still very younsT ; 

 Potatoes have also, within the last few years, been 

 much cultivated, and eaten by the peasantry. From 

 all I can hear, the disease, which has spread more 

 or less over the greater part of Italy, has not 

 reached Sicily, at least not to sufficient extent to at- 

 tract notice, but the Potatoes we have eaten have 

 not been good. Gardener's Chron. 



Giant Sea-weed. — " There is one marine pr(t- 

 duction, which from its importance is worthy of a 

 particular history. It is the kelp or Fucus gigaii- 

 tens of Solander. This plant grows on every rock 

 from low-water mark to a great depth, both on the 

 outer coast and within the channels. I believe, du- 

 ring the voyage of the Adventure and the Beagle, 

 not one rock near the surface was discovered, which 

 was not buoyed by this floating weed. The good 

 service it thus aflords to vessels navigating near the 

 stormy land is evident, and it certainly has saved 

 many a one from being wrecked. I know^ few 

 tl.ings more surprising than to see this p'ant grow- 

 ing 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 

 sufficiently strong to support the weight of the 

 large loose stones to which, in the inland cannels, 

 they grow attached; and some of these stones are 

 so heavy, that, when drawn to the surface, they can 

 scarcely be lifted into a boat by one person. 



" Captain Cook, in his second voyage, says, that 

 at Kerguelen Land, ' some of this weed is of a 

 most enormous length, though the stem is not much 

 thicker than a man's thumb. I have mentioned, 

 that upon some of the shoals on which it grows, we 

 did not strike ground with a line of twenty-four fa- 

 thoms. The depth of water, therefore, must have 

 been greater. And as this weed 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.' Cer- 

 tainly, at the Falkland Islands, and about Terra 

 del Fuego, extensive beds frequently spring up from 

 ten and fifteen fathom water. I do not suppose the 

 stem of any other plant attains so great a length 

 as 360 feet, as stated by Captain Cook. The geo- 

 graphical range is very considerable; it is found 

 from the extreme southern islets near Cape Horn, 

 as far nortli, on the eastern coast (accorduig to in- 

 formation given me by Mr. Stokes) as lat. 43° — 

 and on the western it was tolerably abundant, but 

 far from luxuriant, at Chiloe, in lat. 42°. It may 

 possibly extend a little further northward, but is 

 soon succeeded by difl!'erent species. We thus have 

 a range of 15° in latitude; and as Cook, who must 

 have been well actpiainted with the species, found 

 it at Kerguelen Land, no less than 140° in longi- 

 tude. 



" The number of living creatures, of all orders. 



whose existence intimately depends on that of kelp, 

 is wonderful. A great volume might be written, 

 describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of 

 sea-weeds. Almost every leaf, excepting those 

 that float on the surface, is sc thickly incrusted with 

 corallines as to be of a white color. We find ex- 

 quisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by 

 simple hydro-like jjolypi, others by mor^ or;.'imi/.ed 

 kinds, and beaatiful compound Aseida?. On the flat 

 surfaces of the loaves, various patelliform shells, 

 Trochi, uncovered molluscs, and some bivalves are 

 attached. Innumerable Crustacea frequent every 

 part of the plant. On shaking the great entanirled 

 roots, a pile of small fish, sheils, cuttle-fish, crabs 

 of all orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, beautiful Holu- 

 thurias (some taking the external form of the nudi- 

 branch molluscs,) Planaria2, and crawling ncreid- 

 ous animals, of a multitude of forms, all fall out 

 together. 



" I can only compare these great aquatic forests 

 of the southern atmosphere with the terrestrial 

 ones in the intertropical regions. Yet, if the latter 

 should be destroyed in any country, I do not believe 

 nearly so many species of animals would perish, as, 

 under similar circumstances, would happen with 

 the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant, numer- 

 ous species of fish live, wliich nowhere else would 

 find food or shelter; with their destruction, the many 

 cormorants, divers, and other fishing birds, the 

 otters, seals, and porpoises, would soon perish also; 

 and lastly the Fuegian savage, the miserable lord 

 of this miserable land, would redouble his cannibal 

 feast, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease to 

 exist." — Darwin's Journal of the Voyage of the 

 Beagle. 



Great Mexican Cacti. — There are three spe- 

 cimens of Cereus senilis, from Real de Morte, in 

 the Royal gardens at Kew, near London, which 

 measure J2 feet, 16 feet, and IS^ feet in height. 

 Since small plants of this species are known to be 

 from twenty to twenty-five years old, and since the 

 growth o*" these plants in Mexico is exceedingly 

 slow, there is good reason for believing that these 

 monster specimens are some hundreds (perhaps a 

 thousand) years old. 



The Flower show at Cambridge. — The late 

 London papers are full of the ceremonies of the 

 visit of the Queen to Cambridge, and the installa- 

 tion of Prince Albert as Chancellor of the Univer- 

 sity. Among other entertainments on the occasion, 

 was a brilliant horticultural exhibition in the grounds 

 of one of the colleges, the following brief notice of 

 which we copy from the Illustrated London Neics. 



" The flower show, in the beautiful grounds of 

 Downing College, was a delightful relief to the in- 

 door ceremonies. 



About nine spacious tents were erected in difTer- 

 ent j)arts of the grounds, within wliich the flowers 

 and j)lants were arranged; military bands played 

 for the entertainment of the company; seats were 

 placed beneath the trees for those who were dis- 

 posed to seek temporary repose or shelter from the 

 rays of the sun; and many who could not obtain 

 seats, stretched themselves on the grass, forming, 

 as they were seen from various points, Watteau- 



