114 HANDY BOOK OF 



several ships annually visit the coast of Brittany from Jersey, 

 to fetch cargoes of sea- weed for that island. 



The largest sea- weeds of the German Ocean are the Lami- 

 naria, saccliarina and digitata. The former is found in 

 broad, leathery, waving ribbons, two to three fathoms in 

 length ; the latter in long tufts growing on stalks, three to 

 four feet in height. These large plants are, however, but 

 dwarfs, when compared with the gigantic Laminaria of 

 colder regions. Only one of the plants belonging to this 

 family is found in tropical waters ; but, on the other hand, 

 it extends to the furthest arctic limits, and increases in size 

 and variety toward the poles. The northern hemisphere 

 has more genera than the southern. Both in the North 

 Atlantic and Pacific are found the Gigantic Alarioe, with 

 leaves forty feet long, and several feet in width ; and in the 

 extreme north the Agarum Thalasso-phyllum, Costaria, and 

 Nereocystis ; the latter only found in the Pacific, while 

 Microcystis and Lessonia flourish mostly in the southern 

 hemisphere. 



In the numerous channels and bays of the Tierra del 

 Fuego, the extraordinary growth of the Macrocystis pyrifera 

 excites the admiration of all visitors. On every rock, 

 Darwin says, from low water-mark to a great depth, both 

 along the outer coasts and in the channels, this gigantic 

 marine plant grows. It is astonishing how it can nourish 

 beneath the mighty waves of the Western ocean, which no 

 rock, however hard, can resist. The stem is round, slimy, 

 smooth, and rarely more than an inch in diameter. Captain 

 Cook tells us, in his second voyage, that at Kerguelen's 

 land this plant attains an enormous length, although the 

 stem is not above the thickness of a man's hand. On some 

 of the rocks where it grows, th bottom was not found with 

 a twenty-four fathom line. As the Macrocystis does not 

 grow perpendicularly, but forms a very acute angle with 

 the ground, Mr. Darwin considers himself justified in giving 

 it a length of 400 feet and more. 



