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Updated: June 4, 2025
They lay there side by side with a bit of carved abalone shell Alf had got from a Nez Perce Indian, and some curious seaweeds he had picked up at the mouth of the Columbia River. Carlen's one gilt brooch was kept in the same box, and when she took it out of a Sunday, the sight of the withered flowers always reminded her of Wilhelm.
Some of the seaweeds were green, nourished by the luminous water of the surface; others had the reddish color of the deep where enters only the deadly chill of the last rays of the sun. Like fruits of the oceanic prairies, there floated past close bunches of dark grapes, leathery capsules filled with brackish water.
I could tell you endless tales of transformations in these tiny lives, but I want to-day to show you a few of my friends, most of which I brought yesterday fresh from the pool, and have prepared for you to examine. Let us begin with seaweeds.
This was their first knowledge of the "Sargasso sea," a curious tract in mid-Atlantic which is always green with floating seaweeds. "The continent we shall find farther on," wrote the confident Admiral. An observation of the sun on the seventeenth proved what had been suspected before, that the needles of the compasses were not pointing precisely to the north.
I find now the only way is to lie flat down on the rock, so that my hands and eyes are free to observe and handle, and then, bringing my eye down to the edge of the pool, to lift the seaweeds and let the sunlight enter into the chinks and crannies.
We met with little of remark in this voyage, besides being accompanied with fowls all the way, especially pintado-birds, and seeing now and then a whale: but as we drew nigher the coast of New Holland we saw frequently 3 or 4 whales together. When we were about 90 leagues from the land we began to see seaweeds, all of one sort; and as we drew nigher the shore we saw them more frequently.
Pausing for a moment to take breath, after a sharp wrestling-match far down among the seaweeds, the Pup's observant eyes caught sight of a small, black triangular object cutting swiftly the smooth surface of the swells. He stared at it curiously. It was coming towards him, but it did not, to his uninitiated eyes, look dangerous.
There was white coral, and coral in shades of pink, and red, and violet; there were sea-cucumbers and jellyfish; shrimp of tiny proportions and scarlet in colouring; barnacles of every description; curious shells of fairy-like proportions; seaweeds and grasses and moss of exquisite delicacy, making the cable look in places as if it were a rope of tiny many coloured blossoms.
He was the first to think of them as a linked series, the higher developing out of the lower under the pressure of what he called a perfecting principle. Out of the inanimate rocks had sprung the marine plants the seaweeds. From these had developed first "plant animals" like the sea anemones and the sponges. These grew attached to the rocks, as plants do.
A dismal chasm yawned deep before them, and in the gray gloom the ship's crew saw many wondrous things. Great sea-monsters swam among the rocks, and seemed not to heed the uproar above them. Lovely mermaids sat in their green-and-purple caves, and combed their tresses of golden hair; and thoughtful mermen groped among the seaweeds, searching hopefully for lost or hidden treasures.
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