589.3 



IV. 



Recent Work on Seaweeds. 



STUDENTS of algae will welcome Messrs. Macmillan's new volume 

 of Science Manuals, namely, that on the Study of Seaweeds, by 

 Mr. G. Murray (i). The author meets a pressing need in providing 

 a handy and trustworthy text-book. The study of algae is continually 

 advancing, and an immense amount of work has been done in recent 

 years, so that the aspect of the whole subject has been changed by 

 the progress of research. The results arrived at by the workers are 

 scattered in many papers, both English and foreign, or are embodied 

 in lengthy monographs which are not easily accessible. A wide- 

 spread interest in seaweeds, or any exact knowledge of the subject, 

 has been difficult, as there has been no book other than systematic 

 works to guide the student. Phycologists like Mr. Bornet and others, 

 who were able to undertake such a task, have been content to publish 

 at intervals the results of their own observations on morphology and 

 development ; they have stopped short of arranging the results in 

 text-book form. This is the more remarkable when we consider the 

 splendid treatises on Fungi by Berkley and De Bary. 



Mr. Murray's " Introduction to the Study of Seaweeds " is 

 critical throughout, and the facts have been selected from abundant 

 material with great care. The introduction deals with the biological 

 conditions of marine plants, their economic uses, and their distribu- 

 tion in space and in time. The record of fossil algae is, however, very 

 small, that branch of phycology being somewhat starved for lack of 

 material. A large field of investigation has been opened up in the 

 study of plankton plants — the floating algae of the open sea, the 

 extent of which has been proved to be so much greater than that of 

 the coast marine flora. " A recent estimate of the bulk of this flora," 

 writes Mr. Murray (Introduction, p. 19), "compares the inconspicuous 

 marine organisms of the Sargasso Sea with the bulk of the floating 

 banks of gulf- weed that give this great tract of ocean its name, with 

 the result that the microscopic forms enormously exceed the gulf- weed 

 in aggregate mass." Mr. Murray lays special stress on the economic 

 importance of these microscopic plants, which form the primary food 

 of marine animals, and merit more attention than they have yet 

 received from authorities on fishery matters. 



