Page:The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.djvu/499

Falklands, etc.] discovery, to the annals of those perils and privations which have ever marked the progress of discovery or enterprise in the stormy seas of the south. "Nihil vilior Alga", is a saying more trite than true, and one which a seaman can never use; for these weeds often prove his unerring guide towards land, as they surely are to the direction of the currents; or become of more importance still in the case of the present plant; for it is, where growing, not oidy the infallible sign of sunken rocks, but every rock that can prove dangerous to a ship is conspicuously buoyed by its slender stem and green fronds, and we may safely affirm that without its presence many channels would be impracticable, and numerous harbours in the south closed to our adventurous mariners.

The first notice of the Macncystis, with which we are acquainted, is of so early a date as the middle of the 16th century, and occurs in a copy of sailing directions for mariners, with the title "A Rut tier from the River of Plate to the Streight of Magelana", and forms part of "A special note concerning the currents of the sea between the Cape of Buena Esperanza and the coast of Brazilia, given by a French pilot before Sir John Yorke, Knt., before Sebastian Cabote, which pilot had frequented the shores of Brazilia eighteen voyages." (Hakluyt, ed. 2. vol. iv. p. 219). In describing the above-mentioned route, after passing Cape Sta. Martha, the trusty pilot's direction to the mariner is to " goe S.W. by W. until he be in 40 degrees, where he shall find great store of weedes which come from the coast"; and again, in pursuing the voyage after entering the Straits, "if you see beds of weede, take heed of them and keep off from them." Now, both the position assigned to the great masses of floating weed and the value of those which are attached in denoting hidden dangers, are conclusive as applying to the Macrocyst/s. These directions bear no date; but the discovery of the Strait of Magalhaens was in 1520, and the death of Sebastian Cabote took place in 1556, so that we have sufficient proof that this plant attracted the attention of the earliest Antarctic voyagers in the longitudes of Cape Horn; though it may have been noticed previously on the southern extreme of Africa or the China seas. Nor can we wonder that the attention of our forefathers should have been so early called to it, when even now it is of the first importance that the look-out man should use his utmost vigilance to detect, and promptitude to report, this weed, on approaching any of the straits and bays of the shores of Tierra del Fuego and similar latitudes. In the latest voyages that have been published, those of Capts. Foster, King, and Fitz-Roy, we find a constant watch for the "kelp" to have been kept, and caution used to avoid the "moored" pieces, together with instructions how to distinguish them from those which are floating.

The earliest scientific notice which we find of it, consists of a rude figure and description in Bauhin's "Historia Plantarum," published in 1651, where it is designated "Fucus marinus erinitus." In the year 1764, the French Navigator, Bougainville, fell in with the Macrocystis, Lat. 42° S., Long. 57° W., and a long description appeared in 1771, by Don Pernetty, the historiographer of that voyage, together with a sketch, when it was published as a native also of the Falkland Islands. (Pernetty Voy., vol. ii. p. 67. t. ix. f. 5.) About the same period (1771) specimens were collected by Emmanuel Koenig (of Bale) on his voyage to India, and transmitted to Linnaeus; with this observation, "Habitat in oceano iEthiopico e profundissimo mari ssepe enatans insulasque quasi formans," (MSS.); it was then published in 1771, as Fucus pyri/erus (Linn. Mantiss. p. 311,) with the additional remark of "maxiinus forte omnium Fucorum." We are not sure of the precise habitat of Kamig's specimens; but by "oceanus jEthiopicus" he probably alluded to the seas of the Cape of Good Hope, which he doubled on his way to India, and where this weed abounds.

So remarkable a plant was not likely to escape the notice of Cook, and especially of the illustrious companion of that navigator's first voyage, and we accordingly find in his narrative repeated allusions to it, It engaged the attention of Banks when entering the Straits of Le Maire in 1769, and frequently afterwards in the cooler latitudes of the southern ocean. To him we owe the first account of its gigantic dimensions. Captain Cook says, on the authority of Banks and Solander, who called it Fucus giganteus, that the stems attain a length of 120 feet. That these dimensions are considerably under the mark there is little doubt ; though the report that specimens have been measured upwards of 1000 feet is perhaps as much of an exaggeration. Still it must be remembered that, provided the water be smooth and of sufficient extent, there are no impediments to the almost indefinite