THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



Feet. 

 Celebes . . 30 vague. 



Penang . . 28 perhaps reliable. 



Smith . . -f-25 certainly correct. 



Turning from the animal to the vegetable world, 

 we find giants and colossi there which excite our 

 wonder. There is a sea-weed, the Nereocystis, 

 which grows on the north-west shores of America, 

 which has a stem no thicker than whipcord, but 

 upwards of three hundred feet in length, bearing 

 at its free extremity a huge hollow bladder, 

 shaped like a barrel, six or seven feet long, and 

 crowned with a tuft of more than fifty forked 

 leaves, each from thirty to forty feet in length. 

 The vesicle, being filled with air, buoys up this 

 immense frond, which lies stretched along the 

 surface of the sea: here the sea-otter has his 

 favourite lair, resting himself upon the vesicle, or 

 hiding among the leaves, while he pursues his 

 fishing. The cord-like stem which anchors this 

 floating tree must be of considerable strength; 

 and, accordingly, we find it used as a fishing-line 

 by the natives of the coast. But great as is the 

 length of this sea- weed, it is exceeded by the 

 Macrocystis, though the leaves and air-vessels of 

 that plant are of small dimensions. In the Nere- 

 ocystis, the stem is un-branched ; in Macrocystis, 

 it branches as it approaches the surface, and 

 afterwards divides by repeated forkings, each 

 division bearing a leaf, until there results a float- 

 ing mass of foliage, some hundreds of square 

 yards in superficial extent. It is said that the 

 stem of this plant is sometimes fifteen hundred 

 feet in length.* 



Mr. Darwin, t speaking of this colossal alga at 



* Harvey's " Marine Algae," p. 28. + "Nat. Voyage," xi. 



126 



