"6 THE HALL OF SHELLS. 
twisted by the waves into enormous vegetable 
cables several hundred feet long and thicker 
than the human body. There are bays where 
thousands of people have found employment 
gathering these spoils after an ocean storm. 
“The Sargassum bacciferum is the Gulf 
weed, which always floats and is not unfamil- 
lar to voyagers upon the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans. The localities where this seaweed is 
most abundant are called Sargasso Seas. 
“Seaweeds love best the quiet waters of 
the temperate seas, avoiding the cold waves of 
the frigid zones and the more heated currents 
of the torrid. If found in these, they lack the 
delicacy of the mosses in the temperate zone. 
Different seas and different localities have their 
distinct sea flora, often found in such immense 
colonies as to give their color to the sea. 
“They are dependent upon light, hence 
are not found below one thousand feet, or 
the depth to which hght ceases to penetrate. 
Light is their painter also: mosses near the 
surface, catching its fullest rays, are green 
like terrestrial vegetation; the brilliant reds 
and delicate pinks are to be found upon rocks 
at no great depth and near the coasts; those 
in the deeper seas grow brown and abundant, 
and their somber hues but enhance the bril- 
