ALGJE. 249 



especially in the north of Europe, and some are esteemed great 

 delicacies. Cattle, at certain seasons of the year, repair to the 

 shores at low tide and devour the sea-weeds with great eager- 

 ness. From the marine Alga?, iodine, a new principle and pos- 

 sessed of very remarkable properties, is derived. It has been 

 successfully employed in the cure of goitres ; a disease which, 

 Dr. Gillies informs us, has yielded in South America to the 

 application of the stem of a certain Fucus, long before 

 iodine was employed in civilized Europe. In the manufactory 

 of kelp these same plants are of vast importance and the value 

 of land rose in Scotland, (during the war on the Continent 

 and when we Mere deprived of the means of obtaining a pure 

 alkali from the south of Europe,) in a most extraordinary de- 

 gree ; so that the rocky boundary of our island yielded a great 

 revenue to the different proprietors, and to our government, by 

 the duty that was paid on the article produced. Acanthophora 

 muscoides and Gigartina Helminthochorton hold a place in the 

 pharmacopoeia as vermifuges. Chondrus crispus has been of 

 late largely collected in Ireland, after it has lain and become 

 bleached upon the beach. and is used very generally as a substitute 

 for isinglass, in making blanc-mange. The famous '• edible nests' 

 (the nest of the swallow, called Hirundo esculenta) are said to 

 be made from a species of sea- weed : and lastly I may mention 

 that sea-weed i< employed to a vast extent in the manuring of 

 land in the vicinity of the coast, either thrown on fresh, or first 

 laid in a heap to ferment and mixed with other vegetable 

 manures. 



Low as this Order of plants is in the scale of vegetable beings, it 

 is yet the one which approaches the nearest to certain animal*. 

 Indeed 1 1 1 « - ablest naturalists have been unable to draw the line 

 of distinction between the least perfect of these and the (ess 

 highly organized of animals. 



In no country have the Algffi been more successfully studied 



than in Great Britain; and when the extent of our coast is con- 

 sidered, our numerous rivers, lakes and other situations favour- 

 able to their growth, it will be at once seen that lew can have 

 better opportunities of studying them than the naturalists 1 of 



Our islands. Woodward and Turner and Dillwyn have ODOSt 



extensively investigated ami described our marine and fresh 

 water Alga?, ami the late Miss Hutching of Bantry, ami Mrs. 

 Griffiths of Torquay, have studied this family of plants with a 

 degree of perseverance, ardour ami success, which has ranked 

 their names with the most eminent algologists. Stack- 

 house, Laraouroux, Agardh and Lyngbye hare I a among 



the first t" separate the old genera of Fucus, f Iva and ( '< nu mi, 

 under which almosl the whole of the present Algt wert ar- 

 ranged, into distinct and more or less well-marked genera* To 

 this subject) Dr. Greville of Edinburgh has long devoted bis 



