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 perpendicular
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 [7] 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 sea-weed.
Almost all the leaves, excepting those that float on the surface, are
so thickly incrusted with corallines as to be of a white colour. We
find exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by simple
hydra-like polypi, others by more organized kinds, and beautiful
compound Ascidiae. On the leaves, also, various patelliform shells,
Trochi, uncovered molluscs, and some bivalves are attached. Innumerable
crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the great
entangled roots, a pile of small fish, shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of
all orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, beautiful Holuthuriae, Planariae, and
crawling nereidous animals of a multitude of forms, all fall out
together. Often as I recurred to a branch of the kelp, I never failed
to discover animals of new and curious structures. In Chiloe, where
the kelp does not thrive very well, the numerous shells, corallines,
and crustacea are absent; but there yet remain a few of the
Flustraceae, and some compound Ascidiae; the latter, however, are of
different species from those in Tierra del Fuego: we see here the fucus
possessing a wider range than the animals which use it as an abode. I
can only compare these great aquatic forests of the southern hemisphere
with the terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions. Yet if in any
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