1888.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 13 



Works on fresh-water algae accessible in Washington.* 



By Prof. E. S. BURGESS. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 



The object of this paper is to direct notice to the facilities now existing in 

 and near Washington for the study of the fresh-water algas, with the hope 

 of enlisting the interest of new workers, and of securing greater facihties. 



Attention is called to the slow development of algological science in this 

 country, and to its beginning in the Old World, finding its first formulated 

 expression in Vaucher's History of the Fresh-water Algae, in 1S03. Works 

 devoted to descriptions of fresh-water algte, of which copies are known to be 

 in Washington, arranged according to date of publication or preparation, are 

 as follows, including references to those accessible at Baltimore : — 



1845. Hassall's British Fresh-water Algse ; now become a rare book. The 

 only copy known in this section is that of the Library of Congress ; two vol- 

 umes, the first containing text, the second plates ; valuable to the student of 

 development of the science, and to the general student for comparison ; but its 

 terminology, classification, indefinite modes of description, and the author's 

 mental attitude, all furnish a curious contrast to more recent science. Noth- 

 ing can impress on us more forcibly a sense of the advantages of the student 

 of the present day than to turn back to this ambitious, extended, and once 

 authoritative work, and to see recorded there the vain struggles of the science 

 of that time to comprehend or correlate structures now regarded as funda- 

 mental. The amount of labor that has been required to establish the truths 

 of cell-structure will hardly be appreciated until, in this volume, the student 

 reads the acute author's confessions of uncertainties and his doubts as to the 

 interpretation of phenomena. 



1845. Klitzing's Phycologicae TabulcE commenced publication this year, 

 continuing till 1869. These volumes of plates of the then known algcS of the 

 world have been very serviceable in identification of species ; a copy is in the 

 Feabody Library, Baltimore. They must be used with the remembrance 

 that the author was inclined to mviltiply species, great numbers of which have 

 since been disallowed. But his names, even in such cases, are useful as badges 

 by which to label states, conditions, or varieties, which may often be as im- 

 portant to study as are distinct species. Unfortunately no copy of his preced- 

 ing text, ' Phycologia Generalis,' 1843, is at hand. 



1850. Microscopical Observations in Several Southern States, by Frof. J. 

 W. Bailey, of the West Foint Academy, published by the Smithsonian, con- 

 tains, among other objects, a number of figures and descriptions of desmids ; 

 out of print ; copies are occasional. 



1850. Harvey's ' Nereis,' published by the Smithsonian, contained descrip- 

 tions and colored figures of a number of our fresh-water species (together with 

 the marine, which constitute its bulk) ; out of print ; copies occasional, and 

 in principal libraries ; sold at $20.00. 



1864. Rabenhorst's Flora Europasa Algarum. We look in vain in this 

 section for a copy of this great work, long an authority, and the basis of 

 Prof. Wood's North American Fi-esh-water Algas. Some specimens of 

 Rabenhorst's 'AlgiE Exsiccati ' are, however, in the herbarium of the Agri- 

 cultural Department. Nos. 521-540 are in the Library of Congress. 



1872. Wood's North American Fresh-water Algae ; copies occasional, and 

 in principal libraries ; sold at $5.00. Till now the only American monograph 

 on the subject; contains descriptions of 375 species ; many measurements 

 given, but not in fractions of a micromillimeter ; a number of colored figures. 



♦Abstract of paper read before the Washington Microscopical Society, Nov. 8, 1887. 



