THE SARGASSO SEA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10604, 5 November 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE SARGASSO SEA.

The Sargasso Sea owes its 'existence to the great ocean rivers that encircle it. ] On the charts this huge system of ocean ; rivers forms an irregular circle. In ttio l centre of it is a great ellipse more than a'thousand .miles east and west and t»vo thousand miles north and south. It is like a vast lake in the centre of the Atlantic, but one whose shores are evermoviuff waters instead ot stable laud, explains a writer in Harper's Weekly. It is like the calm centre of an immense whirlpool. The far-off deep-sea currents that sweep around its circumference' do not disturb the stagnant waters within its boundaries. These weed-covered waters are for ever placid, except at rare intervals, when, some vagrant . storm swoops down from the heavens and ruffles their surface the atmosphere above is usually as calm as the seas below. The great rivers ot the air, tho trade winds, pass this region by. All-sorts of small aquatic and insect : life flourish around the borders of the ] Sargasso Sea. There arc ■numberless , varieties of fish, molluscs, shrimps, | crabs, and water fleas. Almost invariably this life takes on the--protective color of the masses of yellow weeds m which.it lives.. ■'.-"'' ~,".«' Some of these inhabitants ot. the Sargasso Sea are found nowhere else. There is a transparent shrimp that has wondrous eves on the end of long pedi"cles. These eyes are very faceted, and each facet sheds a brilliant greenish li.rht and snarkles like a splendid gem. ■The'water "fleas are extraordinary also. Some are totally blind, while others go to the opposite extreme and arc nearly all eye. Even the fishes arc unique. There are some that build nests in which to hatch their young. They form the weeds into huge balls about the size of a Dutch cheese. The hsh binds these together with giutmous threads which it exudes from its body. These threads are so strong that a man cannot pull them apart with his hands. One explorer who brought up in a. net .one of these fish nests found six small fish ihsidel

It is said'that only a small portion of the United States has ahyavs been free from freezing weather, and that is at the verv tip of Florida. Ostriches lay the largest cgg3 of any living birds, but they would look small compared with those of the epyorius, which used -to flop around in Madagascar. These measured 30 inches in circumference and wero sometimes much "larger.. The humming bird lays the 'smallest egg and thoso of some species are Smaller than the eggs of some of tho* beetles found in the tropics. The -coast region of Alaska has a mild climate, not colder than the northern, "part of Puget sound or of Scotland. Th'e J stand of trees is dense, averaging for considerable areas 25,000 feet per acre; Sitka spruce forming about 20 per cent of the stand and western hemlock about 75 per cent. Although by far the most ibiindanx sppcies, western hemlock docs not produce as large indii vidual trees as tho spruce or western | red cpc! n r —tho foi mer occasionally I irig a diameter of six feet with a' height' I of 150 feet, and the cedar diameters of. from three to four feet.