XXll PREFACE 



that, except for large tree trunks, it is impossible to see what 

 lies beneath. Clambering over these, long since decayed and 

 become the consistency of soft mould, it is a common thing to 

 sink in up to the hips. " No soil is to be discovered," Lieutenant 

 Sky ring very aptly remarks ; " the shrubs, and even the trees 

 which are of large growth, rise out of Moss, or decomposed 

 vegetable substances." 



The Alga3 include the gigantic Macrocystls j^yTifera, not only 

 the greatest of all Seaweeds, but the longest growth known in 

 all the vegetable kingdom. It attains a length of many hundred 

 feet, growing from the bottom in deep water and trailing along 

 the surface. Other very large Seaweeds of this region are 

 Durvillea and Lessonia. Red Seaweeds are represented by 

 several species of Delesseria and Nitophyllum. The green 

 Lettuce-like widely-distributed Vliia latt'ssima, of course, occurs. 



Of Macrocystis Sir Joseph Hooker says, as the result ol 

 his observations on the "Erebus" and "Terror" Antarctic 

 Expedition : — " In the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, and 

 Kerguelen's Land, where all the harbours are so belted with 

 its masses that a boat can hardly be forced through, it generally 

 rises from eight to twelve fathom water, and the fronds extend 

 upwards of one hundred feet upon the surface. We seldom, 

 however, had opportunities of measuring the largest specimens, 

 though washed up entire on the shore ; for on the outer coasts of 

 the Falkland Islands, where the beach is lined for miles with 

 entangled cables of Macrocystis^ much thicker than the human 

 body, and twined of innumerable strands of stems coiled together 

 by the rolling action of the surf, no one succeeded in unravelling 

 from the mass any one piece upwards of seventy or eighty feet 

 long ; as well might w^e attempt to ascertain the length of hemp 

 fibre by unlaying a cable." The greatest length arrived at by 

 the expedition was about seven hundred feet ; but, far larger 

 growths than this were observed at an earlier period, and not 

 measured for want of opportunity — nor were these thought 

 anything extraordinar}', in view of the report that Macrocystis 



