SEAWEEDS 



INTRODUCTION 



THE study of seaweeds is of very modern origin, 

 and nothing beyond casual recognition of their 

 existence is to be found in the literature and 

 memorials of early times. The Greeks have left us 

 engraved figures of Gorgons whose heads were 

 decorated with seaweeds ; there is but one mention 

 of them in the Bible, when Jonah exclaims, 

 " The depths closed me round about, the weeds 

 were wrapped about my head '' ; and the re- 

 ferences in Latin literature, even that of the poets, 

 such as the " Alga projecta vilior " of Virgil 

 and the " inutilis Alga " of Horace are merely 

 contemptuous. While other plants received notice 

 and were the subjects of study in these early times 

 and during the middle ages, the flora of the sea 

 remained within its confines a hortus indusus within 

 a barrier that still jealously hides much from our 

 knowledge. In Sir Hans Sloane's great herbaria of 

 many travellers and collectors, preserved in the 



B 



