Fixed To A Piece Of Madrepore, This Seaweed Vegetates At The Bottom Of The Ocean, At The Depth Of 192 Feet, Notwithstanding Which We Found Its Leaves As Green As Those Of Our Grasses.

According to the experiments of Bouguer, light is weakened after a passage of 180 feet in the ratio of 1 to 1477.8.

The seaweed of Alegranza consequently presents a new example of plants which vegetate in great obscurity without becoming white. Several germs, enveloped in the bulbs of the lily tribes, the embryo of the malvaceae, of the rhamnoides, of the pistacea, the viscum, and the citrus, the branches of some subterraneous plants; in short, vegetables transported into mines, where the ambient air contains hydrogen or a great quantity of azote, become green without light. From these facts we are inclined to admit that it is not exclusively by the influence of the solar rays that this carburet of hydrogen is formed in the organs of plants, the presence of which makes the parenchyma appear of a lighter or darker green, according as the carbon predominates in the mixture.

Mr. Turner, who has so well made known the family of the seaweeds, as well as many other celebrated botanists, are of opinion that most of the fuci which we gather on the surface of the ocean, and which, from the 23rd to the 35th degree of latitude and 32nd of longitude, appear to the mariner like a vast inundated meadow, grow primitively at the bottom of the ocean, and float only in their ripened state, when torn up by the motion of the waves.

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