Perhaps I should not promise more than the brown Tangle and the green Ulva,
with its bright lettuce-like leaves; for red seaweeds belong to deep water,
and are not easy to find. Many an hour have I spent peering and groping
in the little pools at low water in search of these same much-prized
rosy-tinted "flowers of the sea"; and many a disappointment I have had,
even after a fortunate find, in seeing how soon the lovely colour faded, in
spite of all my efforts to keep it.
We often speak of the "salt sea" or "the briny ocean," without perhaps
thinking how it comes to be salt. I used to think it was because there were
vast salt mines at the bottom of the sea; but that was only a guess at the
truth.
Let us think what happens when there is a heavy shower; how quickly the
raindrops gather force until they run down the street, making gutters on
each side! But how unlike the muddy water in these gutters is the rain as
it fell from the sky--how is this? It is the same water, but as it hurries
along each drop picks up and carries with it its own little grain of sand
or dust. If tiny gutters are tinged by the mud which they carry with them,
how much more must this be the case with the great rivers which empty
themselves into the ocean! They carry with them not only sand and earth,
but the minerals and salts which are contained in them, to form the bed of
the ocean. The salt which is thus washed out of the soil by streams and
rivers is not evaporated, but remains behind, for the sea has no outlet
through which it can again be carried away.
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