526 Dr. W. H. Harvey's Account of the Marine Botany of 



AlgiB, collected by Mr. Mylne, was presented to me by the late Dr. Charles 

 Lemann, of Loadon, and is now incorporated with the Dublin University Her- 

 barium. This series, though small, contains several not ascertained by Preiss, 

 and the specimens are generally more copiously collected, and in better order. 

 I have received a few others from my friend J. Backhouse, of York, who pro- 

 cured them at Fremantle, during his visit to the colony. Collections of Algse, 

 I am informed, have been repeatedly made in this colony by amateurs, chiefly 

 ladies ; but respecting their contents the botanical world is no wiser, as they 

 have been dispersed hither and thither among friends at home. 



This is all the information I possess respecting previous algological re- 

 searches in AVestern Australia. My own observations were made between 

 January and August, 1854, at a few widely separated points on this extensive 

 coast ; not, perhaps, at the best possible collecting stations, but at those which 

 were most accessible. Tliese were King George's Sound and Cape Riche, on 

 the southern coast; and Fremantle, Garden Island, and Eottnest Island, all in 

 the immediate vicinity of Swan River, on the western coast. I shall briefly 

 describe the i'eatures of the coast of these places. 



I landed at King George's Sound in January, and remained till the end of 

 February ; and I revisited this shore in August. My head-quarters were at the 

 little town of Albany, situated on the shores of Princess Royal Harbour, an 

 oval, land-locked, lake-like basin, with a very narrow entrance; and I made fre- 

 quent excursions on foot to the coasts in the vicinity, chiefly to Middleton Bay, 

 distant about three miles ; and also dredged repeatedly in various parts of the 

 Sound between Bald Head and the opposite shores. The vegetation of the 

 enclosed harbovir is, as might be expected, very difl^erent from that of the more 

 exposed Sound. Its shores are generally sandy, shoaling to a considerable 

 distance from the margin, leaving a very broad marginal belt of less than two 

 fathoms in depth at high water, and in many places of less than one fathom. 

 The tides rise and fall very irregularly, being much influenced by the M'ind. 

 The rise varies from two to four feet ; and there is generally but one tide in the 

 twenty-four hours. Now and then, however, I have observed two tides. The 

 depth of the central basin varies from five to seven fathoms. About tlie entrance 

 the shores are rocky and rather steep, the rocks being coarse granites perhaps 

 the least adapted of any to the growth of Algte. In all the shallow water round 



