MARINE PLANTS. 4u^» 



land are the one permanent advantage of this over- 

 culti\'ation . These extend to its further end and make 

 it possible to reach the wild cliffs wliich disappear 

 beneath tlie waves. Here \'0u can climb from rock to 

 rock, until at last your feet touch the blue water. There 

 one can lie down, gazing into the crystal deptlis, and 

 sp\' out the curious plant forms which the sea contains, 

 and listen to the music of the waves \'S'hich lose them- 

 selves amongst the labj'rinthine passages ot the rocks. 



CHAPTER XI. 



Plants are not found at so great a dej^th in the 

 sea as animals because of the conditions necessar\' 

 for plant life for the\' recuiire light to assimilate the 

 substances on which they live, while animals are less 

 dependent on light. For plants utilise the ra\'S of the 

 sun to convert inorganic substances into nourishment. 

 They transform the energy of the light into clremical 

 action and are thus able to separate carbonic gas into 

 its eleinents, ox^•gen and carbon : and also to divide 

 water into its two component parts, oxygen and hydrogen. 

 The)' build up in their organisms carbo-h\drates out 

 of carbon, ox\'gen and hydrogen, particularh^ sugar and 

 starch, which the^- need for the support of life and for 

 forming their tissues. The assimilation of carbon takes 

 place in the green portions of the living cell substances. 

 This granular chlorophyll gives our landscape its green 

 appearance, f^ut amongst marine plants we meet with 

 other colourings also. If you walk along the shore of 

 the Mediterranean after a storm, }'ou will see not only 



