24 HANDY BOOK OF 



natives form into a kind of musical horn ; and hence tra- 

 vellers often hear the deep and sonorous sounds produced by 

 these marine trumpets, when lingering on shores, beside 

 which are seen the dripping and tufted heads of the L. 

 buccinolia left uncovered by the tide, and glistening in the 

 beams of morning. Adventurous boys assist one another in 

 warily descending the slippery side of sea- cliffs till they 

 come within reach of. a straggling branch, which they bear 

 off in triumph; and soon another burst of wild melody 

 responds from behind some jutting cliff, blending with the 

 roar of ocean, and awakening images of far-off days when 

 the credulous ear of childhood listened at every pause of 

 rushing waters for the songs of sea-nymphs, warbling from 

 out the deep. 



But the larger of all known Algse, though comparatively 

 slender, are different members of the brotherhood of Macro- 

 sytes, of which the most common is the 31. parafera. This 

 graceful plant, emulating in slightness and in loftiness the 

 arborescent bamboos and ferns described by Humboldt, 

 occasionally rises to the height of fifteen hundred feet. The 

 leaves are long and narrow, and at the base of each is a 

 strong vessel filled with air, hy aid of which the macrosytes 

 is enabled to support its great length in a fluctuating element, 

 for the stem at its greatest size is about the thickness of a 

 finger, and the upper branches are as slender as packthread. 

 The plants, therefore, require a peculiar organization ; and 

 their roots, similar to those of forest trees, are strong and 

 fibrous, and well adapted to take firm hold of the huge 

 masses of broken rocks among which they grow. Proofs are 

 they, both in growth and structure, that oceanic vegetation 

 bears an obvious reference to its unstable and aqueous ele- 

 ment — equally with that of land, to the elements by which 

 it is surrounded. The depths of ocean are, consequently, 

 varied with submarine forests, beautiful in their diversity, 

 as the primeval woods of recently-discovered lands, often of 

 vast extent, and intermingled with breaks of lawn; and 



