SEA-WEEDS. 
175 
exception^ the utmost limit of vegetable life 
in the south polar seas. The Macrocystis 
pyrifera exists in vast detached masses, like 
green meadows, in every latitude from the 
south polar ocean to the 45th degree N. Lat. 
in the Atlantic, and to the shores of Cali¬ 
fornia in the Pacific, where there are fields 
of it so impenetrable, that it has saved ves¬ 
sels driven by the heavy swell towards that 
shore from shipwreck. It is never seen 
where the temperature of the water is at 
the freezing-point, and is the largest of the 
vegetable fribe, being occasionally 300 or 
400 feet long. The Laminaria abounds off 
the Cape of Good Hope and in the Antarc¬ 
tic Ocean. These two species form great 
part of a band of sea-weed that girds Ker¬ 
guelen Islands so densely, that a boat can 
scarcely be pulled through it; and they are 
found in great abundance on the coasts of 
the Falkland group, and also in vast fields 
in the open sea, hundreds of miles from any 
land: had it ever grown on the distant 
shores, it must have taken ages to travel so 
far, drifted by the wind, currents, and the 
sand of the seas. The red, green, and pur- 
