THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



fact only pieces torn away from the real for- 

 ests, which are attached to the bottom. The 

 streams have heaped them together in one place 

 into a many-branched web. 



Whenever the ocean is so shallow that the sea- 

 weed can attach itself to the soil and yet at the 

 same time obtain sun-light from above, the coast 

 of the land must evidently be near. About the 

 base of an island the marvelous water-sprite 

 crowns weave themselves the most and we there- 

 fore can not be far from such an island our- 

 selves. The net-work of leaves, however, swims 

 on the surface. If now we mount up we shall 

 see a soft gently swaying wreath formed in the 

 boundless ocean waste about a strange volcanic 

 island v/hich itself bears no forests. Like a 

 naked point it lies just above this incessantly 

 murmuring and swaying overhead carpet of the 

 giant sea- weed forests, a red cone in the midst. 

 The coast, through the incessant gnawing of 

 the water, falls away precipitously with here 

 and these steps of half worn lava streams and 

 pillars of basalt. The breakers burst on the 

 rocks, but somewhat in the distance beyond the 

 shallows where the sunken forest begins, the 

 flood rocks placidly through the gelatinous 

 leafy carpet as though smoothed with oil. Like 

 the branches of an actual forest upon which one 

 looks down from a high obsefrvatory so this sea- 



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