118 TENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



examined, tlie specimens on their white papers must he placed on dry 

 sheets of soaking paper, covered with fresh cloths, and again placed 

 nnder pressure. And this process must he repeated every day until 

 the specimens are fully dry. 



In drying, most specimens will be found to adhere to the papers on 

 which they have heen displayed, and care must he taken to prevent 

 their sticking to the pieces of cotton cloth laid over them. Should 

 it he found difficult to remove them from the muslin, it is better to 

 allow them to dry, trusting to after-removal, than to tear them away 

 in a half-dried state, which would j)robably destroy the specimens. A 

 few dozen pieces of un glazed thin cotton cloth of proper size should 

 always be at hand, (white muslin, that costs six or eight cents per 

 yard, answers very well). These cloths will be required only in the 

 first two or three changes, for when the specimen has begun to dry 

 on the white paper it will not adhere to the soaking paper laid over 

 it. In warm weather the smaller kinds will often be found perfectly 

 dry after forty-eight hours' pressure, and one or two changes of 

 papers. 



USES OF THE ALG^. 



The uses of the Algas may be considered under two points of view, 

 namely, the general office which this great class of plants, as a class, 

 discharges in the economy of nature ; and those minor useful applica- 

 tions of separate species which man selects on discovering that thay 

 can yield materials to supply his various wants. 



The part committed to the Alg* in the household of nature, though 

 humble when we regard them as the lowest organic members in that 

 great family, is not only highly important to the general welfare of 

 the organic world, but, indeed, indispensable. This we shall at once 

 admit, when we reflect on the vast preponderance of the ocean over 

 the land on the surface of the earth, and bear in mind that almost the 

 whole submarine vegetation consists of Alga?. The number of species 

 of marine plants which are not Algfe proper is extremely small. 

 These on the American coast are limited to less than half a dozen, 

 only one of which, the common Eel Grass {Zostera marina,) is ex- 

 tensively dispersed. 



All other marine plants are referable to Algas ; the wide-spread sea 

 would therefore be nearly destitute of vegetable life were it not for 

 their existence. Almost every shore — where shifting sands do not 

 forbid their growth — is now clothed with a varied band of Algas of 

 the larger kinds ; and microscopic species of these vegetables {Diato- 

 macece) teem in countless myriads at depths of the ocean as great as 

 the plummet has yet sounded, and where no other vegetable life 

 exists. It is not, therefore, speaking too broadly to say that the sea, 

 in every climate and at all known depths, is tenanted by these vege- 

 tables under one phase or other. 



The sea, too, teems with animal life — that " great and v/ide sea, 

 wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great 

 beasts," affords scope to hordes of animals, from the "Leviathan" 

 whale to the microscopic polype, transparent as the water in which he 



