“First, they eat one another a good deal. The weakest becomes the prey of a stronger one, which in its turn finds its master and becomes food for it. But it is plain that if the inhabitants of the sea had no other resource than devouring one another, sooner or later nourishment would fail them and they would perish.
Seaweed
“Therefore, in this matter of nutrition, things are ordered in the sea much as they are on land. Plants furnish alimentary matter. Certain species feed on the plant, others devour those that eat the plant; so that, directly or indirectly, vegetation really nourishes them all.”
“I understand,” said Jules. “A sheep browses the grass, a wolf eats the sheep, and so it is the grass that nourishes the wolf. There are, then, plants in the sea?”
“In great abundance. Our prairies are not more grassy than the bottom of the sea. Only, marine plants differ much from land ones. They never have blossoms, never anything that can be likened to leaves, never any roots. They attach themselves to rocks by a stickiness at their base, without being able to draw nourishment from them. They feed on water and not on the soil. Some resemble sticky thongs, folded ribbons, long manes; others take the form of little tufted buds, soft top-knots, wavy plumes; still others are slashed in strips, rolled in spirals, or shaped like coarse, slimy threads. Some are olive-green, or pale rose-color; others are honey-yellow, or bright red. These odd plants are called seaweeds.”
CHAPTER LXXV
RUNNING WATERS
“I HAVE been told,” said Emile, “that the Rhone empties its waters into the sea.”
“The Rhone does run into the sea,” returned his uncle. “It pours into it every second five million liters of water.”