ANIMAL LIFE IN THE MANGROVE FORESTS 95 



sidembk? length, finally full down into the mud, where they 

 stick, with their sharp point buried, and soon take root. The 

 fruits of many plants are furnished with wings, that the winds 

 may carry them far away and propagate them from land to 

 land ; others, enveloped in hard, waterproof shells, float on the 

 surface of the sea, and are wafted by the currents to distant 

 coasts ; but here we have a plant, the seeds of which were 

 destined to remain fixed on an uncertain soil, close to the 

 parent-plant, and surely this end could not have been attained 

 in a more beautiful manner ! 



As the young mangrove grows upwards, pendulous roots issue 

 from the trunk and low branches, and ultimately strike into the 

 muddy ground, where they increase to the thickness of a man's 

 leg ; so that the whole has the appearance of a complicated series 

 of loops and arches, from five to ten feet high, supporting the 

 body of the tree like so many artificial stakes. 



It may easily be imagined what dense and inextricable 

 thickets, what incomparable breakwaters, plants like these — 

 through whose mazes even the light-footed Indian can only pene- 

 trate by stepping from root to root — are capable of forming. 



Their influence in promoting the growth of land is very great, 

 and in course of time they advance over the shallow borders of 

 the ocean. Their matted roots stem the flow of the waters, and, 

 retaining the earthy particles that sink to the bottom between 

 them, gradually raise the level of the soil. As the new formation 

 progresses, thousands of seeds begin to germinate upon its 

 muddy foundation, thousands of cables descend, still farther to 

 consolidate it ; and thus foot by foot, year after year, the man- 

 groves extend their empire and encroach upon the maritime 

 domains. 



The enormous deltas of many tropical rivers partly owe their 

 immense development to the unceasing expansion of these 

 littoral woods ; and their influence should by no means be over- 

 looked by the geologist when describing the ancient and eternal 

 strife between the ocean and the land. 



When the waters retire from under the tangled arcades 

 of the mangroves, the black mud, which forms the congenial 

 soil of these plants, appears teeming with a boundless variety of 

 life. It absolutely swarms with the lower marine animals, with 

 myriads of holothurias, annelides, sea-urchins, entomostraca. 



