DBEDGING EESEARCHES. 481 



*Y 



luxuriates here, together with broad-leaved fuci 

 of various kinds. The last plant of this zone is 

 the nullipora, a coral-like sea-weed, the lowest 

 in the British seas, where it does not extend 

 below the depth of 60 fathoms. In the Medi- 

 terranean Sea Professor Forbes has found fuci 

 at a depth of 7 9 fathoms ; below this they alto- 

 gether disappeared. Nullipore, so curiously 

 resembling coral as to have been long mis- 

 taken for an animal rather than a vegetable 

 production, still exists in that sea, forming the 

 food of various marine creatures, at a depth of 

 105 fathoms. Below this, vegetable existence 

 ceases. In all seas it will probably be found 

 that a similar system of order and arrangement 

 prevails. In the Mediterranean, as the depth in- 

 creases the number of the plants becomes fewer ; 

 until just before the depth of 105 fathoms, the 

 traces of submarine vegetable life are very scarce 

 indeed. 



Until recently it was thought that the sea- 

 weeds known under the botanical titles Macro- 

 cystis pyrifera and the Laniaria radiata, which 

 have been met with on the antarctic coasts, 

 formed the utmost limit of vegetable life in the 

 south polar seas. Beyond the region in which 

 these plants were found, it was thought that the 

 ocean and land were alike barren of vegetable 

 forms. But an interesting account has lately 



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