is undefinable in words, but clear enough. One sees in a moment
that the Sargassos, of which there are several species on Tropical
shores, are a genus of themselves and by themselves; and a certain
awe may, if the beholder be at once scientific and poetical, come
over him at the first sight of this famous and unique variety
thereof, which has lost ages since the habit of growing on rock or
sea-bottom, but propagates itself for ever floating; and feeds among
its branches a whole family of fish, crabs, cuttlefish, zoophytes,
mollusks, which, like the plant which shelters them, are found
nowhere else in the world. And that awe, springing from 'the
scientific use of the imagination,' would be increased if he
recollected the theory--not altogether impossible--that this
sargasso (and possibly some of the animals which cling to it) marks
the site of an Atlantic continent, sunk long ages since; and that,
transformed by the necessities of life from a rooting to a floating
plant,


'Still it remembers its august abodes,'


and wanders round and round as if in search of the rocks where it
once grew. We looked eagerly day by day for more and more gulf-
weed, hoping that


'Slimy things would crawl with legs
Upon that slimy sea,'