THE UNDISCOVERED ISLAND

CHAPTER 10





In following the fleet of argonauts, the four explorers had risen
higher in the water and soon found they had wandered to an open
space that seemed to Trot like the flat top of a high hill. The
sands were covered with a growth of weeds so gorgeously colored that
one who had never peered beneath the surface of the sea would
scarcely believe they were not the product of a dye shop. Every
known hue seemed represented in the delicate, fern-like leaves that
swayed softly to and fro as the current moved them. They were not
set close together, these branches of magnificent hues, but were
scattered sparsely over the sandy bottom of the sea so that while
from a distance they seemed thick, a nearer view found them spread
out with ample spaces of sand between them.

In these sandy spaces lay the real attractiveness of the place, for
here were many of those wonders of the deep that have surprised and
interested people in all ages.