i»34-] NATURAL BREAKWATERS. 241 



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 * up from the greater depth of forty-five 

 fathoms. The beds of this sea-weed, even when of not 



freat breadth, make excellent natural floating breakwaters, 

 t is quite curious to see, in an exposed harbour, how soon 

 the waves from the open sea, as they travel through the 

 straggling stems, sink in height, and pass into smooth 

 water. 



The number of living creatures of all orders, whose 

 existence intimately depends on the kelp, is wonderful. A 

 great volume might be written, describing the inhabitants 

 of one of these beds of sea-weed. Almost all the leaves, 

 excepting those that float on the surface, are so thickly 

 encrusted with corallines as to be of a white colour. We 

 find exquisitely delicate structures, some Inhabited by simple 

 hydra-like polypi, others by more organised kinds, and 

 beautlfulj compound AscidicB. On the leaves, also, various 

 patclllform shells, Trochi uncovered molluscs, 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 Holuthurice^ PlanaricB, 

 and crawling nereldous animals of a multitude of forms, all 

 fall out together. Often as I recurred to a branch of the 



• "Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle" vol. i., p. 361. — It appears that 

 «ea-weed jjrows extremely quick. Mr. Stephenson found (Wilson's "Voyage 

 round Scotland," vol. ii., p. itK) that a rock uncovere*! only at 8prin{;-tic!c.s, 

 which had been chiselled bmooth in November, on the lolhiwini; May, that is 

 within six months afterward*, was thickly covered with Fucus digitatus two 

 '■-' ' '"'  'ilcntus six feet, in length. 



