180 



THE OPAL SEA 



Swaying 

 rock weeds. 



weed " when rolled and heaped on the beach 

 may not appear attractive; but in their ocean 

 home, seen through a blue lens of water, they 

 sway with each come and go of the wave with 

 a grace quite wonderful and quite unparalleled. 

 Even that wandering waif of the sea, the Gulf 

 weed (Sargassum), drifting in the great At- 

 lantic current, has a bend and a reel about it, 

 as it slips down the back of a wave, that is 

 almost as graceful as the flight of the petrel 

 following after it. 



And what of those plants far down in the 

 sea gardens that never feel the push of waves, 

 those plants that never move or are moved from 

 age to age? Are they perhaps modeled upon 

 the same pattern as their cousins near the 

 shore? By no means. In the depths where no 

 storm or wave ruffles the eternal serenity na- 

 ture is free to expand; and there she grows 

 plants of symmetrical designs with no fear of 

 their accidental destruction. Wonderful forms 

 she models — crimson weeds with pluraey 

 fronds, purple dulses with lace-like patterns, 

 iridescent mosses with antlered branches. 

 Countless algw, wing-shaped, threaded with 

 lines, cupped and domed, starred and crossed 

 and circled, are there. 



Patterned 

 forms in 

 deep still 

 waters. 



A Igce of the 



greater 



depths. 



