head
there was another of the floating islands; and another and another,
until the surface of the sea seemed covered with them. They were really
fifteen or twenty fathoms apart; but, from a distance, it didn't look as
if they were.

"Why, Sol," said little Jacob, in surprise, "it doesn't stop the ship at
all. I should think it would. What is it?"

"Well," answered little Sol. "I asked one of the men, and he laughed and
said it was nothing but seaweed--that the ship would make nothing of it.
I was afraid we were running aground. And the man said that the rows--it
gets in windrows, like hay that's being raked up--he said that the
windrows were broken up a good deal by the storm; that he's often seen
'em stretching as far as the eye could see, and a good deal thicker than
these are."

Little Jacob laughed. "What are you laughing at?" asked little Sol,
looking up.

"'As far as the eye could see,'" said little Jacob.

"Well," said little Sol, "that's just what he said, anyway."

"I'm going to ask your father about it," said little Jacob. "He'll know
all about it. He always knows." And he got up, carefully, and made his
way inboard; then he ran aft, to look for Captain Solomon.

He found Captain Solomon on the quarter deck, leaning against the part
of the cabin that stuck up through the deck. He was half sitting on it
and looking out at the rows of seaweed that they passed. So little Jacob
asked him.

"Yes, Jacob," answered Captain Solomon, "it's just seaweed, nothing but
seaweed. We're just on the edge of the Sargasso Sea, and that means
nothing but Seaweed Sea. The weed gets in long rows, just as you see it
now, only the rows are apt to be longer and not so broken up. It's the
wind that does it, and the ocean currents. It's my belief that the wind
is the cause of the currents, too. I've seen acres of this weed packed
so tight together that it looked as if we were sailing on my south
meadow just at haying time. I don't see that south meadow at haying time
very often, now, but I shall see it, please God, pretty soon."

"Well," said little Jacob, "I should think that it would get all tangled
up so that it would stop the ship."

"My south meadow?" asked Captain Solomon. He was thinking of haying, and
he had forgotten the Seaweed Sea.

Little Jacob laughed. "No, sir," he answered. "The seaweed. Why doesn't
it get all tangled like ropes, so that it stops the ship?"

"The plants aren't long enough," said Captain Sol