THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 61 



they are directed being an infallible index of the ebb and flow 

 of the tide, and I know few more beautiful sights to be wit- 

 nessed, than by leaning over the gunwale of a boat on a calm 

 day, and gazing through the clear depths of these submarine 

 forests, in which fish swim about as birds fly through the 

 trees of a wood. It is difi&cult to fix a limit to the dimen- 

 sions to which these floating masses of kelp may extend. 

 The distinguished botanist from whom I have already quoted, 

 states, that " in Kerguelen's Land the length of some pieces, 

 which grew in the middle of Christmas Harbour, was esti- 

 mated at more than 300 feet ; but by far the largest seen, 

 during the Antarctic Expedition, were amongst the first of 

 any extraordinary length which the ships encountered, and 

 they were not particularly noticed, from the belief that the 

 report of upwards of 1 000 feet of length was true ; or, at any 

 rate, that better opportunities would arise in the course of a 

 three years' voyage, than the first week of our explorations 

 could afford. These occurred in a strait between two of 

 the largest islands, where, far from either shore, in what is 

 believed to be forty fathoms water, somewhat isolated stems 

 of Macrocystis rose at an angle of 45° from the bottom, and 

 streamed along the surface for a distance certainly equal to 

 several times the length of the Erebus ; data which, if correct 

 (and we believe them so), give the total length of the stems 

 as about 700 feet." 



Although probably the " kelp " has attracted a greater 

 share of the attention of voyagers in the Strait of Magellan 

 and on the coasts of Fuegia than elsewhere, in consequence 

 of being regarded as a salutary warning of hidden dan- 

 gers, it is by no means limited (as indeed the preceding 

 extract shows) to the southern extremity of the South 

 American continent. Of the wide extent of its geographical 



