ADVERTISEMENT. 



In the year 1853 the Author undertook a botanical voyage to 

 the Australian Colonies, with the sanction and under the au- 

 spices of the University of Dublin and of the Royal Dublin 

 Society, both which corporate bodies contributed to his outfit, 

 and, in great measure, supplied the funds on which he travelled. 

 He visited in succession the Colonies of Western Australia, Vic- 

 toria, Tasmania, and New South Wales; and in the eighteen 

 months which he spent on the Australian shores, collected, pre- 

 pared, and dried upwards of 20,000 specimens of 600 species of 

 Algae, besides incidentally making collections of marine zoology 

 to a considerable extent, and drying land plants wherever he 

 had the opportunity. Full sets of his collections have been 

 placed in the University Museum and Herbarium ; a set of the 

 botanical collections, nearly as full, has been sent to the Hooke- 

 rian Herbarium at Kew ; and the duplicate Algae that remained 

 over have been sold towards a payment of the expenses of the 

 journey. 



The duplicates having thus been widely scattered, it has ap- 

 peared to the Author that a work illustrating these dispersed 

 collections would be acceptable to those who possess them, and 

 might be made subservient to a wider purpose, that of promo- 

 ting the study of Marine Botany in our Australian dependencies. 

 In England, the publication of serial works, accompanied by 

 plates or woodcuts, and confined to separate branches either of 

 Zoology or of Botany, has been found greatly to promote the 



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