Dr. Hooker' } s Flora Antarctica. 179 





some thus obtained appeared as if still alive, though collected 

 three years previous to his examination, and subject to many 

 vicissitudes of climate. The snow sometimes falls on the sur- 

 face of the still ocean water and does not freeze, but floats a honey- 

 like substance, often called brash ice : treated in the same way as 

 the pancake ice it yielded an abundant harvest. 7. The mud 

 and other soundings from the bottom of the ocean, when brought 

 up on the arming of the deep sea lead, or by the chlam or dredge, 

 generally contain the siliceous skeletons or coatings of many spe- 

 cies, with the markings on their surface retained. The sound- 

 ings were invariably in greenish mud, into which the lead some- 

 times sunk for two feet. At times this mud seemed almost 

 wholly composed of Diatomaceous remains. 8. The fresh and 

 salt waters and muddy estuaries of the Falkland Islands, and 

 similar localities, present us with species, recurring under circum- 

 stances altogether similar to what accompany their allies in 

 Europe. 



" The universal existence of such an invisible vegetation as 

 that of the Antarctic ocean is a truly wonderful fact, and the 

 more from its not being accompanied by plants of a high order. 

 During the years we spent there, I had been accustomed to regard 

 the phenomena of life as differing totally from what obtains 

 throughout all other latitudes: for every thing living appeared to 

 be of animal origin. The ocean swarmed with mollusca, and par- 

 ticularly entomostracous Crustacea, small whales and porpoises, 

 the sea abounded with penguins and seals, and the air with birds: 

 the animal kingdom was ever present, the larger creatures prey- 

 ing upon the smaller, and these again on smaller still ; all seemed 

 carnivorous. The herbivorous were not recognized, because 

 feeding on a microscopic herbage, of whose true nature I had 

 formed an erroneous impression. It is therefore with no little 

 satisfaction that I now class the Diatomacere with plants, proba- 

 bly maintaining in the south polar ocean that balance between 

 the animal and vegetable kingdoms which prevails over the sur- 

 face of our globe. Nor is the substance and nutrition of the 

 animal kingdom the only function these minute productions may 

 perform ; they may also be the purifiers of the vitiated atmos- 

 phere, and thus execute, in the antarctic latitudes, the office of 

 our trees and grass turf in the temperate regions, and the broad 

 leaves of the palm, &c, in the tropics. * * * * 



"I shall now notice the most remarkable feature in the distri- 

 bution of these organisms. They possess more than ordinary 

 interest, many of the species being distributed from pole to pole: 

 while these, or others are preserved in a fossil state, in strata of 

 great antiquity. There is probably no latitude between Spitz- 

 bergen and Victoria Land where some of the species of either 

 country do not exist. * * * * The siliceous coats of species 



