24 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



those collected by Mr. Hall on Kerguelen's Land, I found them 

 almost identical — in fact, every genus and nearly every species is 

 represented in Hooker's list. 



Another remarkable fact requires notice : some distance to the 

 south-west of Kerguelen's Land a large region of the ocean is quite 

 covered — impassably so — by seaweeds. This region is somewhat 

 similar in appearance to the celebrated Sargasso Sea, in the 

 Atlantic Ocean ; but it must be remembered that the Sargasso 

 Sea is formed of an immense mass of floating seaweeds brought 

 and kept together by a circular movement of ocean currents, 

 whereas the seaweed region near Kerguelen's Land is in the midst 

 of a strong onward current. 



Darwin throws some light on the construction of this almost 

 unknown region. Speaking of the seaweed Macrocystis pyrifera : — 

 " This plant grows on every rock, rising from a depth of often 60 

 fathoms. I know few things more surprising," he says, " than to 

 see this plant growing and flourishing amidst those great breakers 

 of the Southern Ocean, which no mass of rock, let it be ever so 

 hard, can long resist. The stem is round, slimy, and smooth, and 

 seldom has a diameter of so much as an inch," and " nearly all its 

 leaves grow on the surface." Now here we find an explanation of 

 how such a large portion of the sea — 1,000 miles long and 500 

 miles wide — could be covered by seaweeds when the currents of 

 the sea are all in one direction. Presuming that the bottom of 

 the ocean in this part, like the celebrated bank of Newfoundland, 

 rises to within 60 fathoms (360 feet) of the surface, we can quite 

 understand that the enormous length of this seaweed would allow 

 it not only to come to the surface, but to cover the same with its 

 huge leaves. Imagine this submarine rocky island bearing millions 

 of Macrocystis, which, as they arrive at the top of the waves, 

 spread out their massive leaves, often 1,000 in number ; and 

 further consider that the leaves become the home of myriads of 

 parasitic seaweeds, and we can easily understand the apparent 

 anomaly of an immense mass of seaweeds retaining its position in 

 spite of winds and currents. Speaking of similar huge beds 

 of seaweeds, Darwin remarks — " Almost all the leaves, ex- 

 cepting those that float on the surface, are so thickly 

 incrusted with corallines as to be of a white colour. We find 

 exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by simple hydra- 

 like polypi, others by more organized kinds, and beautiful 

 compound Ascidese. On the leaves also various patelliform 

 shells, Trochi, uncovered molluscs, and some bivalves are 

 attached. Innumerable crustacese frequent every part of the 

 plant. On shaking the great entangled roots, a pile of small fish, 

 shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all orders, sea eggs, star fish, crawling 

 Nereidous animals of a multitude of forms all fall out together." 



What Darwin speaks of as occurring in the kelp of these vast 



