Seaweeds and Leaf-green 
ing at latitudes of 80° North where the water is never 
much above the freezing point. At this latitude Kjellman 
discovered no less than twenty-seven species, and most 
of them in fruit.” Close upon three hundred species 
of seaweeds are to be found in the Arctic and Antarctic 
Oceans. 
So that if the reader is to picture to himself the sea- 
weed life of the world, he must first clothe all the rocky 
shores of all the continents and islands with rich sub- 
marine tangle-forests extending far up into the Arctic 
and Antarctic zone. 
Indeed the growth of these seaweeds seems perhaps 
most luxuriant in the colder seas. As one approaches 
the Straits of Magellan, the sea seems to be provided 
with an inexhaustible supply of the great brown alga 
(Macrocystis pyrifera). Patches of it may be passed 
every few minutes, sometimes being researched by 
penguins or other birds, or as long trails bobbing up 
and down in a curious way in the slow heaving rollers. 
Some have suggested that this “kelp” may have the 
honour of explaining the sea serpent, for a long trail 
of it might be-mistaken by an imaginative apprentice 
for that shy and retiring creature. 
Macrocystis is said by one authority to be sometimes 
300 feet in length, which would surely be long enough 
for any sea serpent !18 
When one arrivesat the Straits and passes through to the 
Pacific Coast, the islands are very often surrounded bya 
curious border, 100 feet wide, of this extraordinary plant, 
which is surely the longest if not the tallest on the earth. 
Near Capetown, there are giant algze allied to our 
laminarias which have stems as thick as a man’s waist. 
Even in the Faroes, the thickets of these brown algz’ 
and especially laminaria are said to be about six feet 
high and extraordinarily luxuriant. 
35 
