670 WATER-ROLLED WEED-IULLS. — MACKAY. 



These wash back ami foi-th in shallow water on a sandy bottom, and are 

 sometimes cast on the shore. They are either solid grass, or have a little 

 sand in the middle. At first you would say that they were formed by 

 the action of the waves, like a pebble; yet the smallest are made of 

 equally coarse materials, half an inch long, and they are produced only 

 at one season of the year. Moreover, the wav&s, 1 suspect, do not so much 

 construct as wear dovrai' a material which has already acquired consist- 

 ency. They preserve their form when dry for an indefinitei period." 



Professor Ganong wrote, August 1904, in tiie Educational 

 Be view of Saint John, 'N'&w Brunswick; and Sth April, 1904, 

 in Science of l^ew York; asking for references to similar 

 observations; luit he obtained at that time only one additional 

 reference to a locality — " a lake in Idaho." 



The observations of Miss Bowers on the iVtlantic coast near 

 the mouth of the LaHave, and th!e specimen reported from 

 MacXab's Island, extend our knowledge of the formation to 

 marine waters — even to oceanic beacies. The sphleroidal, and 

 even cylindrical, masses point clearly to the action of the water 

 ar, the main caus'e. The deposition of a mass of eggs on a roll 

 of such algie would Ije one condition to agglutinate into a 

 nucleus a mass which might later contain young marine life 

 within the centre of the future ball. Roots of algte and other 

 entangling forms are often conspicuous as nuclei. But ofteln 

 the whole mass appears to be composed of the more attenuated 

 olive-brown alg^e. Although an addition has been made to our 

 knowledge, there are still Avanting more definite demonstra- 

 tions of the exact manner in which these ball forms are origi- 

 naterl as well as roundcfl. The phenomenon must also be 

 occurring mnve widelv llvaii hitherto observed. "^Miat has been 

 observed so far suggests as an a])])r(i])riate title for them: 

 ^' Water-rollcl Wee.rballs." 



