FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 187 



borne on their bosoms hither. Each careering billow 

 carries on its summit all the floating rejectamenta of 

 the sea ; and, as it rushes in its fulness on the beach, 

 pushes these trophies of its prowess in its van. But 

 there it leaves them ; for it retires, not in a full flow, 

 as it came, but grovelling downward among the 

 gravel, and partly sinking into the sand ; the spolia 

 arrested on the sand, to be thrown higher if a higher 

 wave should come and lift them, but never to be 

 returned whence they came. Here they remain, the 

 flotsam et jetsam, which our old maritime laws assign 

 to the Lord High Admiral as the perquisite of his 

 office make what he can out of them. 



Well, as he is not here to look after his own, we 

 will take the liberty of the first search. Fortunately, 

 he won't grudge what we shall take ; for, as Crabbe 

 says of his insect-hunting weaver 



" Ours is untax'd and undisputed game." 



A moment's glance at our feet suffices to show why 

 this belt of various materials is black. For nine- 

 tenths of the mass consist of the coarser seaweeds of 

 the Melanosperm order ; chiefly the wracks and 

 tangles, the F-uci and Laminarice, which, though 

 olive or brown while living or fresh, speedily become 

 black when their surface dries. The profusion with 

 which such plants line the beach after these winter 

 gales, shows the great force of the sea ; for the waves, 

 though only agitations of the surface, the deep water 

 being waveless, extend at low tide to the great forests 



