1834-1 GREAT SEA-WEED. 273 



but here it must be called a terrestrial shell, for it lives on the damp 

 herbage far from water. Land-shells could be procured only in the 

 same alpine situations with the beetles. I have already contrasted 

 the climate as well as the general appearance of Tierra del Fuego 

 with that of Patagonia; and the difference is strongly exemplified in 

 the entomology. I do not believe they have one species in common ; 

 certainly the general character of the insects is widely different. 



If we turn from the land to the sea, we shall find the latter as 

 abundantly stocked with living creatures as the former is poorly so. 

 In all parts of the world a rocky and partially protected shore perhaps 

 supports, in a given space, a greater number of individual animals than 

 any other station. There is one marine production, which from its 

 importance is worthy of a particular history. It is the kelp, or Macro- 

 cystis pyrifera. This plant grows on every rock from low-water mark 

 to a great depth, both on the outer coast and within the channels.* I 

 believe, during the voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, not one rock 

 near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed by this floating 

 weed. The good service it thus affords to vessels navigating near this 

 stormy land is evident ; and it certainly has saved many a one from 

 being wrecked. I know few things more surprising than to see this 

 plant growing ar.d flourishing amidst those great breakers of the western 

 ocean, which no mass of rock, let it be ever so hard, can long resist. 

 The stem is round, slimy, and smooth, and seldom has a diameter of so 

 much as an inch. A few taken together are sufficiently strong to support 

 the weight of the large loose stones, to which in the inland channels 

 they grow attached ; and yet some of these stones were so heavy that 

 when drawn to the surface, they could scarcely be lifted into a boat by 

 one person. Captain Cook, in his second voyage, says, that this plant 

 at Kerguelen Land rises from a greater depth than twenty-four fathoms ; 

 " and as it does not grow in a perpendicular direction, but makes a very 

 acute angle with the bottom, and much of it afterwards spreads many 

 fathoms on the surface of the sea, I am well warranted to say that some 

 of it grows to the length of sixty fathoms and upwards." I do not 

 suppose the stem of any other plant attains so great a length as three 

 hundred and sixty feet, as stated by Captain Cook. Captain Fitz Roy, 

 moreover, found it growing f up from the greater depth of forty-five 



* Its geographical range is remarkbly wide; it is found from the 

 extreme southern islets near Cape Horn, as far north on the eastern coast 

 (according to information given me by Mr._ Stokes) at lat. 43, but on 

 the western coast, as Dr. Hooker tells me,' it extends to the Rio San 

 Francisco in California, and perhaps even to Kamtschatka. We thus have 

 an immense range in latitude; and as Cook, who must have been wt:ll 

 acquainlsd with the species, found it at Kerguelen Land, no less than 140 

 in longitude. 



f " Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle" vol. i., p. 363. It appears that 

 sea- weed grows extremely quick. Mr. Stephenson found (Wilson's " Voyage 

 round Scotland," vol. ii., p. 228) that a rock uncovered only at spring-tides, 

 which had been chiselled smooth in November, on the following May, that 

 is within six months afterwards, was thickly covered with Fucus digitatus 

 two feet, and F. esculentus six feet, in length. 



