BREAKING OF THE MERES 



Such algae may have remained living in exceedingly hot 

 water ever since that long distant time, the very first of all 

 the geological periods, when there was no distinct separation 

 betwixt land and water, and when the waters which were 

 below the firmament had not been separated from those 

 which were above it. Then the world seems to have been 

 all fog and mist at a very high temperature. 



But all theories on the origin of the world might be 

 briefly summarized by the last nine words ! 



At any rate, the first plant was almost certainly a sea- 

 weed or alga not unlike those which produce the so-called 

 " breaking of the meres." 



At some seasons the water of certain lakes, usually quite 

 clear and pure, becomes discoloured, turbid, and everywhere 

 crowded with multitudes of tiny, bright, verdigris-green 

 specks. The fish at once begin to sulk, refuse to take the 

 fly, and live torpid at the bottom of the water. The minute 

 green particles consist of a certain seaweed or alga. Mr. 

 Phillips put the head of a common pin in the water so as to 

 obtain a very small drop. When placed under a micro- 

 scope, this minute amount of water was found to contain 

 300 individual algae.^ This was in Newton Mere (Shrop- 

 shire), and as this lake extends over 115 acres, it is possible 

 to imagine the millions upon millions of algae which must 

 have existed in it. ITie names of these seaweeds are many 

 thousand times longer than the algae themselves, and it is 

 not really necessary to give them. One of them, however, 

 Aphanizomenon Jlos-aquoe^ has been noticed " tingeing with 

 its delicate green hue the margin of the smallest of the 

 Lochs Maben, in Dumfriesshire."^ Yet it is not so big as 



^ Qjoke, British Freshwater AlgcB, on the authority of Phillips, Trans. 

 Shropshire Natural History Society. 



^ Dickie, Journal Bot. Soc, Edin. , vol. 3, p. 79. 



201 



