11 



little known ; it occupies a much smaller space 

 in the twenty-second and twenty-sixth degrees 

 of latitude,, eighty leagues west of the meridian 

 of the Bahama islands. It is found on the 

 passage from the Caiques to the Bermudas. 



Though a species of sea-weeds * has been seen 

 with stems eight hundred feet long, the growth 

 of these marine cryptogamia being extremely 

 rapid, it is not less certain, that, in the latitudes 

 we have just described, the fuci, far from being 

 fixed to the bottom, float in separate masses on 

 the surface of the water. In this state, the ve- 

 getation can scarcely continue a longer time 

 than it would do in the branch of a tree torn 

 from it's trunk ; and in order to explain how 

 moving masses are found for ages in the same 

 position, we must admit, that they owe their 

 origin to submarine rocks, which, placed at 

 forty or sixty fathoms depth, continually supply 

 what has been carried away by the equinoctial 

 currents. This current bears the tropic grape 

 into the high latitudes, toward the coast of Nor- 

 way and France ; and it is not the Gulf Stream, 

 as some mariners think, which accumulates the 

 fucus to the south of the Azores It were to 

 be wished, that navigators heaved the lead more 

 frequently in these latitudes covered with weeds : 



* The baudreux of the Falkland islands j fucus giganteus, 

 Forster ; laminaria pyrifera, Lamour. 



f Barrow, Voyage to Cochinchina, vol. i, p. 93. 



X 



