ALONG THE SALT MARSHES 157 



limpets and other crustaceans, and streamers of 

 kelp squirm out from the rock where they keep 

 slender hold, to sway in the restless water, just 

 as all the rocks above a certain depth and below a 

 certain height are olive black with dense hang- 

 ings of rock weed while in depths that are just 

 awash at low tide they are olive brown with 

 unending mats of Irish moss. These are but the 

 forms of overwhelming life that meet the eye 

 on first descending into the cool depths. To 

 name all that may be noted in just the pause of 

 a single ebb would be to become a catalogue. 



Yet howsoever vivid the life or astounding by 

 its multiplicity it is not impressions of these that 

 linger long after one has come up from the bot- 

 tom of the ebb. It is rather that here one has 

 breathed the air of the deep life laboratory of 

 the world, that into his lungs and pores and all 

 through his marrow has thrilled a breath of that 

 subtle essence, that life renewing principle which 

 Fernando de Soto sought in the fountain of youth 

 which he thought bubbled from Florida sands but 

 which in reality foamed beneath his furrowing 

 keel as he ploughed the sea in search of it. It 

 is the same thrill which the wilting west wind 

 steeps from the salt marsh as it comes across, 



