32 List of the Si, Lawrence AlgcB, 



these days, the Algas may say to their more lordly brethren of the 

 woods and gardens, " Our forefathers lived many ages before the 

 first of your tribe was born. We inhabited the shallow waters and 

 the shores of the most ancient Silurian seas, and, in every subse- 

 quent age, for millions of years, we have borne silent testimony to 

 the wisdom of the great Creator." Consider too, that if sea-weeds 

 cannot to any great extent be eaten by us, that yet the tiny 

 molluscs, the radiates and the smaller vertebrate fishes need food 

 as well as we. These plants are the sources from which very many 

 of them are sustained in life. Without them there would be 

 famine in many families of the animal kingdom. 



The marine plants perform, besides, the same sanitary work in 

 the sea which the land plants perform on the land. Both are 

 most important agents in purifying the atmosphere and preserving 

 it in a healthy state for animal use. These apparently insignifi- 

 cant Alg^e are indeed most busy and benevolent creatures. They 

 swallow up much that is poisonous in the water, and labour hard 

 to keep it pure and sweet. It is well known that the carbon arising 

 from decaying vegetable or animal substances in water or on land, 

 by combining with oxygen, forms carbonic acid gas, which is both 

 very disagreeable to the organs of smell and very injurious to health. 

 Were it not then for the provision which the good Creator has 

 made, by means of land and sea-plants, to counteract this noxious 

 vapour, many parts of the sea and land would be entirely unfit 

 for the residence of animals. These marine plants have the pe- 

 culiar faculty of absorbing from the carbonic acid gas all the 

 noxious carbon, and setting free the healthy oxygen. They thus 

 decompose that injurious compound, and render the waters suita- 

 ble for animal life. In proof of this, we would adduce the fact, 

 which those who are familiar with the sea-shore may have observed, 

 that the Algae are constantly covered with globules of air, which, 

 like studs of brilliants, sparkle with great beauty, and sometimes 

 shine like stars. These globules are the emancipated portions of 

 oxygen, which, having been attracted into the bad society of carbon, 

 are now set free by the benevolent action of the weeds ; the result 

 is, that, grateful for their liberty, they shine with evident joy. 



We have said enough to show that the lowly Algge are not so 

 useless a class of plants as some people suppose, but that they fill 

 an important place in the grand circle of creation ; they, too, are 

 evidences of that Divine wisdom which it is one of the employ- 

 ments of intelligent and good people to enquire into and admire. To 



