50 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
stated in favour of the Phycologia Britannica is applicable to this, 
which has still higher merits; for as here, too, the author is not 
only the draughtsman, but also the lithographer, so, as may 
reasonably be expected, his experience as an artist has occasioned 
corresponding improvement in the style and execution of. the 
plates; while the publishers, Messrs. Reeve, have, on their parts, 
spared neither expense nor paius to issue the work in a style 
corresponding to its deserts. The portion before us is Part L., 
containing twenty-five exquisitely beautiful plates, as to subjects, 
execution, and colouring, at the very moderate price of 21s. The 
Preface, besides explaming the source whence the author derives 
the rare and graceful species destined for the work, gives the best 
and the most simple information for collecting and drying these 
charming marine productions. "Then follows an admirable sketch of 
the nature of these productions, of their affinities, whether as relates 
to the vegetable or animal kingdom, and their limits. This part 
ofthe subject is handled with great tact and clearness, and we 
cannot forbear extracting the passage relating to that remarkable 
vegetable production, the simplest, perhaps, of any in its organiza- 
tion, the Red Snow. “ Linnæus,” says Dr. Harvey, “ and after- 
wards Jussieu, comprised, under the term Alge, two closely allied 
and very extensive classes of Cryptogamic vegetables, the Sea- 
weeds, or submerged Alga, and the Lichens, or aerial. The more 
accurate observation of these simple plants, in modern times, has 
led to the separation of the Lichens into a distinct class, in some 
respects collateral with the submerged Algæ, but probably, though — 
degraded in its lower members, entitled to a higher rank in the 
scale of organic being than its more showy rival. The humbler 
individuals of the Lichen races do, indeed, appear among the first 
vegetable organisms, which develop themselves on the surfaces of 
naked rocks, whereon, by their alternate growth and decay, they 
afford the earliest obvious deposit of a vegetable soil. They 
. doubtless precede the Fungi in their attacks on the living tissue of © 
. higher vegetables, and thus they would seem to hold the very 
lowest place in the scale of creation. But the eternal snows of © 
lofty mountains, far above the limits even of Lichens, are ‘the 
