Sargasso

SARGASSO, the Sea-Lentile.

Thus the productions of Jamaica, and other places bordering on the gulph of Mexico, may be firſt brought by the ſtream out of the gulph, inveloped in the ſargaſſo or alga of the gulph round Cape Florida, and hurried by the current either along the American ſhore, or ſent into the ocean in the courſe along the ſtream, and then by the ſet of the ſtream; and the prevailing winds, which generally blow two-thirds of the year, wafted to the ſhores of Europe, where they are found.

A number of cryptogamic plants swim about at random in the waters, among which the most interesting, perhaps, in our present state of knowledge, is the sargasso, or gulf-weed of voyagers (Fucus natans), which is found in the Gulph of Florida, and some other parts of the ocean floating in masses or fields, many miles in length.

It is well known to seamen, and others who have crossed the Atlantic ocean, that a certain part of that sea is generally covered more or less with a particular species of weed, called gulf-weed, but the reason of its accumulating there, and its origin, have given rise to much difference of opinion. [...] [T]he part of the ocean in which it is found is usually called the Sargasso sea. The Sargasso weed is also familiarly called tropical grapes, from being found in the vicinity of the northern tropic, but it is most generally known by the name of Sargasso or gulf-weed.

There is no warm current, or if one, a very feeble one, flowing out of the South Atlantic. Most of the drift matter borne upon the ice-bearing current into that sea finds its way to the equator, and then into the veins which give volume to the Gulf Stream, and supply the sargasso of the North Atlantic with extra quantities of drift. The sargassos of the South Atlantic are therefore small.

The fauna of the modern floating sargasso-meadows is composed of highly specialized and unique species of pelagic animals. [...] The community of organisms which is found in these sargasso-flotillas is described in the report on the Challenger Expedition by C[harles] Wyville Thomson.

This is the answer to the choice of the man who does not choose: now he does indeed have the sea, he plunges into it headlong, swaying among the corals of the depths, Hanged by his feet in the sargassoes that hover half-submerged beneath the ocean's opaque surface, and his green seaweed hair brushes the steep ocean beds.

For the next five to ten years, they [turtles] will stay in the Sargasso Sea, feeding off the small sea animals that live in the floating mats of sargasso grass.