254 TIERRA DEL EUEGO chap. 



believe, during the voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, not 

 one rock near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed 

 by this floating weed. The good service it thus affords to 

 vessels navigating near this stormy land is evident ; and it 

 certainly has saved many a one from being wrecked. I know 

 few things more surprising than to see this plant growing and 

 flourishing amidst those great breakers of the western 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. A few taken together are 

 sufficiently strong to support the weight of the large loose 

 stones, to which in the inland channels they grow attached ; 

 and yet some of these stones were so heavy that when drawn 

 to the surface, they could scarcely be lifted into a boat by one 

 person. Captain Cook, in his second voyage, says that this 

 plant at Kerguelen Land rises from a greater depth than 

 twenty -four fathoms; "and as it does not grow in a per- 

 pendicular direction, but makes a very acute angle with the 

 bottom, and much of it afterwards spreads many fathoms on 

 the surface of the sea, I am well warranted to say that some 

 of it grows to the length of sixty fathoms and upwards." I 

 do not suppose the stem of any other plant attains so great a 

 length as three hundred and sixty feet, as stated by Captain 

 Cook. Captain Fitz Roy, moreover, found it growing ^ up from 

 the greater depth of forty-five fathoms. The beds of this sea- 

 weed, even when of not great breadth, make excellent natural 

 floating breakwaters. It is quite curious to see, in an exposed 

 harbour, how soon the waves from the open sea, as they travel 

 through the straggling stems, sink in height, and pass into 

 smooth water. 



The number of living creatures of all Orders, whose existence 

 intimately depends on the kelp, is wonderful. A great volume 

 might be written, describing the inhabitants of one of these 

 beds of seaweed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that 

 float on the surface, are so thickly incrusted with corallines as 



1 Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. i. p. 363. It appears that seaweed 

 grows extremely quick. Mr. Stephenson found (Wilson's Voyage round Scotland 

 vol. ii. p. 228) that a rock uncovered only at spring-tides, which had been chiselled 

 smooth in November, on the following May, that is within six months afterwards, 

 was thickly covered with Fucus digitatus two feet, and F. esculentus six feet, in 

 length. 



