254 
TIERRA DEL FUEGO 
CHAP. 
believe, during the voyages of the Adventure and Beagle , not 
one rock near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed 
by this floating weed. The good service it thus affords to 
vessels navigating near this stormy land is evident ; and it 
certainly has saved many a one from being wrecked. I know 
few things more surprising than to see this plant growing and 
flourishing amidst those great breakers of the western ocean, 
which no mass of rock, let it be ever so hard, can long resist. 
The stem is round, slimy, and smooth, and seldom has a 
diameter of so much as an inch. A few taken together are 
sufficiently strong to support the weight of the large loose 
stones, to which in the inland channels they grow attached ; 
and yet some of these stones were so heavy that when drawn 
to the surface, they could scarcely be lifted into a boat by one 
person. Captain Cook, in his second voyage, says that this 
plant at Kerguelen Land rises from a greater depth than 
twenty-four fathoms; “and as it does not grow in a per¬ 
pendicular direction, but makes a very acute angle with the 
bottom, and much of it afterwards spreads many fathoms on 
the surface of the sea, I am well warranted to say that some 
of it grows to the length of sixty fathoms and upwards.” I 
do not suppose the stem of any other plant attains so great a 
length as three hundred and sixty feet, as stated by Captain 
Cook. Captain Fitz Roy, moreover, found it growing 1 up from 
the greater depth of forty-five fathoms. The beds of this sea¬ 
weed, even when of not great breadth, make excellent natural 
floating breakwaters. It is quite curious to see, in an exposed 
harbour, how soon the waves from the open sea, as they travel 
through the straggling stems, sink in height, and pass into 
smooth water. 
The number of living creatures of all Orders, whose existence 
intimately depends on the kelp, is wonderful. A great volume 
might be written, describing the inhabitants of one of these 
beds of seaweed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that 
float on the surface, are so thickly incrusted with corallines as 
1 Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. i. p. 363. It appears that seaweed 
grows extremely quick. Mr. Stephenson found (Wilson’s Voyage round Scotland , 
vol. ii. p. 228) that a rock uncovered only at spring-tides, which had been chiselled 
smooth in November, on the following May, that is within six months afterwards, 
was thickly covered with Fucus digitatus two feet, and F. esculentus six feet, in 
length. 
