SUBMARINE FORESTS. 395 
and beantifiul compound ascidie. On the flat surfaces of the 
leaves, various patelliform shells, trochi, uncovered mollusks, and 
some bivalves are attached. Innumerable crustacea frequent 
every part of the plant. On shaking the great entangled roots, 
a pile of small fish, shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all orders, sea- 
eggs, star-fish, beautiful holothuriz (some taking the external 
form of the nudibranch mollusks), planariz, and crawling 
nereidous animals of a multitude of forms, all fall out together. 
Often as I recurred to a branch of the kelp, I never failed to dis- 
cover animals of new and curious structure. In Chiloe, where, as [ 
have said, the kelp did not thrive very well, the numerous shells, 
corallines, and crustacea were absent, but there yet remained a 
few of the Flustraceze, and some compound ascidiz; the latter, 
however, were of different species from those in Tierra del Fuego. 
We here see the fucus possessing a wider range than the animals 
which use it as an abode. 
*T can only compare these great aquatic forests of the southern 
hemisphere 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 numerous species of fish live, which 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 redou- 
ble his cannibal feast, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease 
to exist.” 
For many a day’s sail before reaching Cape Horn, large 
bundles of the macrocystis detached by the storm announce to 
the navigator that he is approaching the desolate coasts of 
Tierra del Fuego. 
«We succeeded,” says Professor Meyen, in his Reise um die 
Welt, “in getting hold of one of these floating islands, which, 
amid loud acclamations, was hauled upon deck by the exertions 
of five men. It was quite impossible to disentangle the enor- 
mous mass; we could only detach, to the length of about sixty 
feet, what we considered to be the chief stem; the branches 
were from thirty to forty feet long, and as thick as the principal 
trunk from which they sprang. We estimated the total length 
