272 THE FORESHORES OF KEA. 



But to the point in question, which, is most significant. 

 Within 30 years this once flourishing bed of Enteromorpha has 

 perished, and only a few weakly patches remain scattered like 

 green isles over a waste of mud — over our once verdant play- 

 grounds white ooze reigns supreme. 



Now comes the question. What killed the Enteromorpha ? 

 Mineral wash from Wheal Jane, or an ever increasing volume of 

 town sewage ? Let it be either or neither, it is not unreason- 

 able to conclude that what killed the marine vegetation may 

 have also destroyed the fish, and account in some measure for 

 the great decay of the river fisheries within the memory of those 

 now living. 



Under Trevaster crops up the second bed of clay, soft and 

 plastic as the first, and where the little bay ends a rocky shore 

 commences, bearing the river Algce common to these latitudes. 

 In the crannies of these rocks the common crab abounds, a ^d on 

 the same shore five and twenty years ago the Periwinkle (Zi7^er/w« 

 littoralis) found a genial habitat, though now the sharpest eyes 

 search in vain for anything more than a lone straggler of the 

 once numerous race. 



This beach skirts Penpoll Wood, whose shady cliii scars are 

 fringed with a coarse abundant herbage of a light-green colour 

 — the great hairy Wood Grass or v\x&h.,Ju7icus pilosus of Linnaeus, 

 Juneus sylvaticus of Hudson, and the Gramen nemorusum hirsutum 

 latifoliuin maximum of Ea3^ It appears that Linneeus made this 

 but a variety of the smaller kind, whereas Sowerby has followed 

 Pay and some others in establishing two distinct species, ground- 

 ing the difference upon the greater relative divarication of the 

 panicle, but the difference indeed is very slight. 



The culm of this species is about 2 feet high, and likely, 

 under less favourable conditions, it might not attain more than 

 1 2 inches, which Grray gives as the normal height of the smaller 

 species. The foliage of this plant is of no service, for a hungry 

 horse will hardly touch it ; but Sowerby suggests it would ijiake 

 an excellent packing material. The lanceolate leaf is remark- 

 able in being "fringed with distant, long, soft, white hairs." 

 A remarkable and interesting vein of micaceous trap occurs at 

 Penpoll point. 



