120 SEA-WEEDS. 



This plant is well known to contain a larger 

 quantity of iodine than any European sea- weed. 

 Iodine is the powerful remedy used in cases of 

 those swellings in the neck termed goitre ; and 

 Professor Lindley observes, that it is a curious fact 

 that the stems of a sea-weed are sold in the shops 

 and chewed by the inhabitants of South America, 

 wherever goitre is prevalent, for its cure. This 

 remedy is by them termed goitre-stick, and appears 

 to belong to the Laminariese. To the same tribe 

 belongs also that wonderful sea-weed, called Ever- 

 lasting Bladder-thread (Macrocystispyrifera), which 

 navigators have described as being from five hun- 

 dred to fifteen hundred feet long, and pieces of 

 which have, by measurement, been proved to be 

 three hundred feet in length. It is a remarkably 

 elegant plant, its stalks not thicker than a finger, 

 and its upper branches no larger than a packthread, 

 with narrow leaves, seven or eight feet long, while 

 at the base of each is a strong air-vessel, without 

 whose aid it could not support its great length in 

 the waters. It has a strong root, which holds it 

 fast to its craggy rocky home. Yet, long as it is, 

 it can grow in water less deep than might be sup- 

 posed ; for as Meyan remarks, it does not grow in 

 a straight direction from the bottom, but lies 

 somewhat horizontally. This author observes 

 of it, that it is distributed in the New World 

 throughout all the zones, from the extreme north 

 to the extreme southern point. Baron Humboldt 

 brought it from the tropical seas, but it is 

 found at Cape Horn of greater length than else- 

 where. 



There is one other British genus of Laminariese, 

 containing, however, only one species, the Esculent 



