Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/31

THE GUINEA WATERS. 15 American coasts, and sent drifting in tlie everlasting vortex of the tropical waters. It was first shown by Meyen in 1830, and afterwards fully confirmed by Leps, that the berry-bearing sargasso is a true oceanic plant, produced in the seas where it is found covering thousands of square miles. A fissure near the middle of the mature plant marks the point where the parent stem has thrown off a younger branch, which will in due course multiply itself in the same way. Thus are developed, not vast " praderias," or meadows, as hyperbolically described by the early navigators, but strings of tufted weeds following in islands and archipelagoes some yards long, at times some acres in extent, constantly changing their outlines under the action of the waves. They are easily separated by the prows of passing vessels, for they form only a surface layer, nowhere superimposed in thick masses. They disappear altogether to the east of the Azores, abounding mostly in the regions west and south-west of this archipelago, where they stretch across a space of over fifteen degrees of latitude and longitude, covering altogether an area of about 1,200,000 square miles. Farther west near the Antilles there occurs another less extensive Sargasso Sea, consisting of more open herbacious islets, with long broken lines of floating algi3D penetrating between the West Indian Islands into the Caribbean Sea. Like those of dry land, these islands have also their proper fauna, all the sargasso berries being thickly incrusted with white polyzoa. The fishes lurking in their shade or amid their tufted foliage have become assimilated in colour to the protecting environment ; hence they are not easily detected even by the naturalist among these algao, whose prevailing olive-green hue is mingled with white and yellow tints. The Antennarius marmoratus, one of these fishes, which was at first taken for a shapeless spray of fucus, from two to four inches long, seems better adapted for walking than for swimming. Bj^ a strange coincidence its fins, already suggesting the extremities of quadrupeds, terminate in real toes, the front fins also taking the form of arms, with elbow, fore-arm, and fingered hands. By means of adhesive threads this curious creature builds itself nests in the seaweed. The sargasso, fauna comprises altogether sixty species, including fish, crustaceans, and molluscs. The inhabitants of the Azores might establish profitable fisheries in these fields of floating wrack, where they would also find inexhaustible supplies of manure to increase the fertility of their gardens. This growth might also yield large quantities of iodine, bromine, and other valuable chemical substances. The Guinea Waters. The waters which bathe the west coast of South Africa may be regarded as a distinct basin, at least in the form of its bed, its system of currents, and the insular groups rising above its surface. Thanks to the numerous soundings that have been taken in the neighbourhood of the mainland and islands, and less frequently in the high southern latitudes towards the Antarctic regions, the relief of the marine bed may now be figured on our charts, if not with absolute precision, with sufficient accuracy to reproduce its most salient features. The submerged ridge