GIANT SEA- WEED. 21* 



GIANT SEA- WEED. 



(From Darwin's Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle, pp. 303, 304.) 



" There is one marine production, which from its importance is 

 worthy of a particular history. It is the kelp or Fucus giganteus 

 of Solander. This plant grows on every rock from low*water 

 mark to a great depth, both on the outer coast and within the 

 channels. I believe, during the voyage of the Adventure and 

 the Beagle, not one rock near the surface was discovered, which 

 was not buoyed by this floating weed. The good service it thus 

 affords to vessels navigating near the stormy land is evident, and 

 it certainly has saved many a one from being wrecked. I 

 know few things more surprising than to see this plant growing 

 and flourishing amidst f'..ose great breakers of the Western 

 Ocean, which no mass of rock, let it be ever so hard, can long 

 resist. The 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 some of these stones are so heavy, that, when drawn to the 

 surface, they can scarcely be lifted into a boat by one person. 



" Captain Cook, in his second voyage, says, that at Kerguelen 

 Land, ' some of this weed is of a most enormous length, though 

 the stem is not much thicker than a man's thumb. I have 

 mentioned, that upon some of the shoals on which it grows, we 

 did not strike ground with a line of twenty-four fathoms. The 

 depth of water, therefore, must have been greater. And as 

 this weed 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.' Certainly, at the Falkland Islands, 

 and about Terra del Fuego, extensive beds frequently spring up 

 from ten and fifteen fathom water. I do not suppose the stem 

 of any other plant attains so great a length as 360 feet, as stated 

 11* 



