THE UNDISCOVERED ISLAND In following the fleet of argonauts, the four explorers had risen higher in the water and soon found they had wandered to an open space that seemed to Trot like the flat top of a high hill.

The sands were covered with a growth of weeds so gorgeously colored that one who had never peered beneath the surface of the sea would scarcely believe they were not the product of a dye shop.

Every known hue seemed represented in the delicate, fern-like leaves that swayed softly to and fro as the current moved them.

They were not set close together, these branches of magnificent hues, but were scattered sparsely over the sandy bottom of the sea so that while from a distance they seemed thick, a nearer view found them spread out with ample spaces of sand between them.
In these sandy spaces lay the real attractiveness of the place, for here were many of those wonders of the deep that have surprised and interested people in all ages.
First were the starfishes--hundreds of them, it seemed--lying sleepily on the bottom, with their five or six points extended outward.

They were of various colors, some rich and brilliant, others of dark brown hues.