154 ■ PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS : NARRATIVE. 



ditions were to arise at any time within territory belonging to the United 

 States, as have existed for the past fifteen years in Argentine Patagonia, 

 within sixty days, at the outside, a telegraph line would be built and in 

 operation, bringing all the ports of this coast into immediate connection 

 with the home government and the outside world. We passed a con- 

 siderable portion of the time at Lapataia in the forests adjacent to the 

 little land-locked bay, where we made considerable additions to our 

 botanical collections. 



After three days passed at this port we proceeded on our way eastward 

 through Beagle Channel to Bridges Station, where we stopped just long 

 enough to send a boat ashore with the mail and then continued our jour- 

 ney, until we arrived at a point on the south coast of Staaten Island, where 

 a German bark, "the Esmeralda," had a few days before met with adverse 

 winds and been driven on shore and wrecked. Our vessel was brought 

 to and a boat lowered and despatched to the disabled vessel. The boat 

 succeeded in reaching the bark, but found her deserted. Deciding that 

 the crew had made their way by land or water to St. John's, a convict and 

 life-saving station on the opposite side of the island, for which port we 

 were also destined with supplies and recruits for the station, we were not 

 long in proceeding on our way. 



When we arrived at St. John's, we found that the crew of the wrecked 

 vessel had made their way to that port, where they had been picked up a 

 few days earlier by a passing steamer. We remained at St. John's for an 

 entire day. The harbor is very small and is entered by a very narrow 

 channel. I had at this place no opportunity for going ashore, which I 

 should very much like to have done. The waters of the bay were excep- 

 tionally quiet and beautifully clear and transparent, so that it was easily 

 possible, by looking over the vessel's side, to see for several fathoms be- 

 neath the surface. There was an abundance of kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, 

 growing about in the water, and the more isolated specimens of this won- 

 derful plant formed most beautiful objects, as the broad, flat fronds, fur- 

 nished with pyriform air-sacs, floated gracefully on the surface of the 

 transparent water, beneath which the long, spiral, rope-like stems could be 

 seen descending for several fathoms to their place of anchorage on the 

 rocky bed beneath. This plant is one of the wonders of the vegetable 

 kingdom. It frequently attains to a length of several hundred feet. It is 

 very abundant everywhere about the coasts of these islands, where it has 



