302 THE WEED 8EA. [1698. 



Leaves much resembled those of an Olive Tree. You always 

 find great store of these Weeds in this Place for twenty- 

 Leagues together : Our Pilots had inforni'd us of it before 

 They call this Place the Weed-Sea.^ As we left Batavia in 

 a good Season, we met with Summer every where, and our 

 Navigation for seven Months together, till our arrival in 

 Holland, was perfectly Pleasant and Successful. We had 

 all along favourable Winds, no Calms, nor no Tempests. 

 But in this the fairest Weather in the World, there happen'd 

 an Accident to us that was like to destroy our Ship and 

 another. The whole Fleet being to tack about upon a 

 Signal the Admiral was to give us, every Ship was preparing 

 to execute that Order, and all did it punctually upon the 

 Signal given, except our Ship. While we were bringing 

 about our Tackle, another Ship of the Fleet, that had already 

 tack'd, was coming towards us with full Sails, and we thought 

 it was impossible for us to avoid her. The Officers cry'd 

 out on one side, and the Crew on the other, but for all that 

 our Vessel did not obey, although the Consternation became 

 general, and the Danger was so great and near, that the chief 

 Pilot himself judg'd we could not escape it. The Captain, 



situation of the banks of sea-weed varies according to the prevailing 

 winds. Humboldt quotes a description from the Periplus of Scylax : — 

 "The sea beyond Cerne ceases to be navigable in consequence of its 

 great shallowness, its muddiness, and its sea-grass. The sea-grass lies 

 a span thick, and is pointed at its upper extremity, so that it pricks." 



The sargassum (fucus natans), or " gulf-weed", which forms this 

 weed-sea, first discovered by Columbus, inhabits the tropical and 

 adjacent seas of both hemispheres, and the genus includes many local 

 species. In the Sargasso Sea plants have shorter leaves, the branches 

 more contracted, and the bristles of the air-vessels broken off shorter 

 than those of the Indian Ocean. The genus sargassum is the most 

 highly organised of the melanospermex, or olive-coloured sea-weeds 

 possessing root, stem, branches, leaves, air vescicles, and distinct organs 

 of fructification. {Vide Miss Merrifield's paper, On Giilf-UHcd, in 

 Nature, xviii, p. 709.) 



1 In orig. : " C'est une espoce d'Algue que Tagitation des Hots 

 detache des Rochers," omitted by translator. 



