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SARGASSO SEA AS ATLANTIS 31 He admits this theory of formation was inaccurate but later refers to "the dense wreck-filled center of the Sargasso Sea" and makes his castaway hero declare: What I looked at was the host of wrecked ships, the dross of wave and tempest which through four centuries has been gathering slowly and still more slowly wasting in the central fastnesses of the Sargasso Sea. 2 * Sir John Murray naturally gives a more moderate and scien- tific account, explaining: The famous Gulf Weed characteristic of the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic belongs to the brown algae. It is named Sargassum bacciferum, and is easily recognized by its small berry-like bladders .... It is supposed that the older patches gradually lose their power of floating, and perish by sinking in deep water .... The floating masses of Gulf Weed are believed to be continually replenished by additional supplies torn from the coasts by waves and carried by currents until they accumu- late in the great Atlantic whirl which surrounds the Sargasso Sea. They become covered with white patches of polyzoa and serpulae, and quite a large number of other animals (small fishes, crabs, prawns, molluscs, etc.) live on these masses of weed in the Sargasso Sea, all exhibiting re- markable adaptive coloring, although none of them belong properly to the open ocean. 10 Finally we have from the Hydrographic Office the official naval and scientific statement of the case. In the little treatise already referred to, Lieutenant Soley tells us that the southeast branch of the Gulf Stream "runs in the direction of the Azores, where it is deflected by the cold upwelling stream from the north and runs into the center of the Atlantic Basin, where it is lost in the dead water of the Sargasso Sea." 31 As to just what this is the office answers: Through the dynamical forces arising from the earth's rotation which cause moving masses in the northern hemisphere to be deflected toward the right-hand side of their path, the algae that are borne by the Gulf Stream from the tropical seas find their way toward the inner edge of the circulatory drift which moves in a clockwise direction around the central part of the North Atlantic Ocean. In this central part the flow of the Ibid., p. 27. 10 Murray, pp. 140-141. 11 Soley, column 2, lines 3-5.