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Show A ' 'OTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 69 markable example of an assemblage of "social plants" of a single pecies. On terra firma, the savannahs or prairies, or grassy plains of America, the heaths (ericeta), and the forests of the north of Europe and A ia, consisting of coniferous trees, birches, and willows, offer ales degree of uniformity than do those thalassophytes. Our heaths show, in the north, in addition to the prevailing Calluna vulgaris, Erica tetralix, E. ciliaris, and E. cinerea; and in the south, Erica arborea, E. scoparia, and E. meditterranea. The uniformity of the a pect offered by the Fucus natans is greater than that of any other assemblage or association of plants. Oviedo calls the fucus banks "meadows," praderias de yerba. Considering that the island of Flores was discovered in 1452, by Pedro Velasco, a native of the Spanish port of Palos, by following the flight of certain birds frorri the island of Fayal, it seems almost impossible, seeing the proximity of the great fucus bank of Corvo and Flores, that a part of these oceanic meadows should not have been seen before Columbus, by Portuguese ships driven by storms to the westward. Yet the astonishment of the companions of Columbus in 1492, when surrounded by sea-weed uninterruptedly from the 16th of September to the 8th of October, shows that the magnitude of the phenomenon at least was previously unknown to the sailors. The anxieties excited by the accumulation of sea-weed, and the murmurs of his companions in reference thereto, are not indeed mentioned by Columbus in the extracts from the ship's journal given by Las Casas. He merely speaks of the complaints and murmurs respecting the danger to be feared from the weak but constant east winds. It is only the son, Fernando Colon, who, in writing his father's life, endeavored to depict the fears of the sailors in a dramatic manner. According to my researches, Columbus crossed the great fucus bank in 1492, in lat. 28k 0 1 and in 1493, in lat. 37°1 both times in the long. of from 38° to 41° W. This is deducible with tolerable certainty from Columbus's recorded estimation of the ship's rate, and "the distance daily sailed over;" derived indeed, not from casting the log, but from data afforded by the running out of half-hour sandglasses (ampolletas). The first certain and definite mention of a log (catena della poppa) which I have been able to discover, is in the year 1521, in Pigafetta's journal of Magellan's Voyage round the |