The Slimy Sea Grass 421 



attach itself. Kipling alludes to it in his fine poem 

 of the Derelict : — 



• South where the corals breed, 

 The footless floating weed 

 Folds me and fouls me, strake on strake upcrawling.' 



Its Spores must be universally diffused all over the 

 millions of square miles of ocean. For only let a 

 congenial surface be exposed to the action of the sea, 

 such as a wooden plank or a bare piece of iron (it 

 does not love the poisonous paint which is put on 

 the bottom of steel ships or yellow metal sheathing), 

 and in an incredibly short space of time the weed 

 will cover it with a bright green slimy veil which, 

 being scraped off and dried, looks like the very finest 

 grass. So rapidly does it grow that in wet ships, 

 as we call them, that is, vessels over whose decks the 

 sea is almost continually washing in heavy weather, 

 it is absolutely necessary to give the decks a good 

 hard scrubbing every two or three days to clear off 

 this weed growth, which is so extremely slippery as 

 to make it dangerous to walk about the decks. 



It is a very curious sight to see a ship, a sailing 

 ship that is, that has been out a long while rolling 

 lazily in a calm with the long dank tresses of the weed 

 on her sides lying closely to her as she lifts, and floating 

 out all around her as if alarmed when she plunges. 

 But it looks exceedingly mournful upon a derelict, 

 which naturally gathers more upon it than a vessel 

 which is being handled, since it is obvious that the 

 quieter its host the more rapid its rate of growth. 

 It will there be found growing thickly all over her, 

 even in the cabins if the sea has easy access, and as 

 she wallows helplessly it spreads Hke a gloomy halo 

 worn by the genius of despair. Only upon closer 



