171 Dr. Hooker's Flora Antarctica. 



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In describing the above mentioned route, after passing Cape Sta. 

 Martha, the trusty pilot's direction to the mariner is to 'goe S. 

 W. by W. until he be in 40 degrees, where he shall find great store 

 of weedes which come from the coast ;' and again, in pursuing the 

 voyage after entering the Straits, ■ if you see beds of weede, take 

 heed of them and keep off from them.' Now, both the position 

 assigned to the great masses of floating weed and the value of 

 those which are attached in denoting hidden dangers, are conclu- 

 sive as applying to the Macrosystis. These directions bear no 

 date ; but the discovery of the Strait of Magalhaens was in 1520, 

 and the death of Sebastian Cabote took place in 1556, so that we 

 have sufficient proof that this attracted the attention of the ear- 

 liest Antarctic voyagers in the longitudes of Cape Horn ; though 

 it may have been noticed previously on the southern extreme of 

 Vfrica or the China seas. Nor can we wonder that the attention 

 of our forefathers should have been so early called to it, when 

 even now it is of the first importance that the look-out man 

 should use his utmost vigilance to detect, and promptitude to re- 

 port, this weed on approaching any of the straits and bays of 

 the shores of Tierra del Fuego and similar latitudes. In the 

 latest voyages that have been published, those of Capt. Foster 

 King, and Fitzroy, we find a constant watch for the ' Kelp' to 

 have been kept, and caution used to avoid the ' moored' pieces. 

 together with instructions how to distingushed them from those 

 which are floating. 



11 Sd remarkable a plant was not likely to escape the notice of 

 Cook, and especially of the illustrious companions of that navi- 

 gator's first voyage, and we accordingly find in his narrative re* 

 peated allusion to it. It engaged the attention of Banks when 

 entering the Straits of LeMaire in 1769, and frequently after- 

 wards in the cooler latitudes of the Southern ocean. To him 

 we owe the first account of its gigantic dimensions. Captain 

 Cook says, on the authority of Banks and Solander, who called 

 it Facus gigantcus, that the stems attain a length of 120 feet. 

 That these dimensions are considerably under the mark, there is 

 little doubt ; though the report that specimens have been meas- 

 ured upwards of 1000 feet, is perhaps as much of an exaggera- 

 tion. Still it must be remembered that, provided the water be 

 smooth and of sufficient extent, there are no impediments to the 

 almost indefinite elongation of the upper part of a plant which 

 never branches, or whose growth is independent of all below it 

 even of the root. Specimens measuring between 100 and 200 

 feet are common in the open ocean, and these are always broken 

 off at the lower end, either from the division of the frond by 

 sea-animals, through whose agency the plant increases and the 



floating island it forms dilates, or from the impossibility of se- 

 curing the whole mass from the motion of the vessel or the swell 



