170 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the north of them, but out of direct influence. Contrast 

 again with that of Charlestown the marine vegetation of 

 Bermuda lying right in the path of the Gulf Stream — the 

 most northern coral island in the world. To come nearer 

 home — it is constantly bringing us waifs from the Sargasso 

 Sea, which it skirts, in the form of the so-called "gulf- 

 weed" ; and there are settled on our southern and western 

 shores Algae which we have in common with the West 

 Indian Islands and Florida — species which you will look 

 for in vain but a short way up the North American coast 

 itself. I can imagine few more interesting studies in 

 distribution than a comparison of the marine flora of 

 Orkney and Shetland with that of the neighbourhood of 

 Cape Farewell in Greenland, lying precisely in the same 

 latitude. On our side we have the influence of the Gulf 

 Stream. At Cape Farewell this is not only absent, but 

 there is another powerful current, believed by Nansen to 

 come right over the Pole itself — which that gallant 

 traveller hopes (and we hope) will bear him over it and 

 " keep his chin up on the sea of life " — there is this other 

 current setting from the frozen north and bearing on its 

 icy bosom floes and bergs southwards in a dense stream. 



A comparison of these two floras would assuredly 

 instruct us in the ways of ocean currents in modifying 

 our marine floras, as streams of stable temperature. The 

 importance of the fact of transport of Algse by the Gulf 

 Stream to our shores will be seen later when I come to 

 speak of the barrier interposed by the depths of the ocean. 

 The question is worth asking, does man affect the distri- 

 bution of seaweeds ? That he does so to a far less extent 

 than in the case of land plants is obvious enough. I 

 have recently made a short investigation of the growth of 

 Algse on ships' bottoms, a subject of much practical impor- 

 tance, since it means, in spite of anti -fouling paints and 



