41 



CHAPTER III. 



MARINE ALQ^, OR SEA-WEEDS. 



Sea and land are, after all, wonderfully like 

 each other. The surface of the land has its 

 mountains, its valleys, its fire-vomiting volcanoes, 

 its mountains of eternal cold. So the bed of the 

 sea is delved into vast valleys, as yet unfathom- 

 able by human plummet ; and these valleys we 

 of the upper world call depths. Also, it has its 

 precipitous mountains, some towering above the 

 watery surface, and others lifting their heads until 

 they are dangerous neighbours to those that go 

 in ships upon the waters ; and these we call by 

 various insulting names according to their degree 

 of elevation. And there are volcanoes of the sea 

 as well as of the land ; while the Polar islands, 

 which are, in fact, the tops of submarine moun- 

 tains, are covered with snows as eternal as those 

 which crown the Monarch of mountains him- 

 self. 



Then, the sea-bed has its Table Mountains, its 

 vast Saharas, its undulating prairies, its luxuriant 



