USEFUL ALGAE 



By Florence Meieb Chase 



Associate Plant Physiologist, Division of Radiation and Organisms, 

 Smithsonian Institution 



[With 9 plates] 



ALGAE AND THE ANCIENTS 



The earliest mention of algae that we can find in the Chinese Classics 

 is strangely enough an economic one, thereby discrediting Virgil's 

 famous words, "vilior alga" or "useless seaweed." In the Book of 

 Poetry, the Chinese song words which have a datable range between 

 800 and 600 B. C, the following ode occurs: 



THE DH-IGENCE AND BEVEEENCE OF THE YOUNG WIFE OF AN OFFICER, DOING HER PART 

 IN SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS 



She gathers the large duckweed, 



By the banks of the stream in the southern valley. 



She gathers the pondweed. 



In those pools left by the floods. 



She deposits what she gathers, 



In her square baskets and round ones ; 



She boils it, 



In her tripods and pans. 



She sets forth her preparations, 



Under the window in the ancestral chamber. 



Who superintends the business? 



It is [this] reverent young lady. 



In Legge's translation of this poem which is given above, the words 

 "pondweed" and "duckweed" are designated in the original Chinese 

 version by the character for algae. From this poem we can assume 

 that even in the time of Confucius algae were considered a food of 

 great delicacy, even a worthy sacrificial offering to the ancestors since 

 the ancestral chamber is known to be the room behind the temple 

 specially dedicated to the ancestors. 



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