478 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



work in the British Algce will furnish an inte- 

 resting outline of the peculiarities of the vege- 

 table tenants of the ocean : " We find the 

 vegetation of the ocean no less conspicuous for 

 beauty and variety of form than splendour of 

 colour, admirably fitted for the place it is 

 designed to occupy, and of direct utility to 

 mankind. The marine Alga is no longer the 

 Alga inutilis (the worthless Alga). Viewing 

 these tribes in the most careless way, as a sys- 

 tem of subaqueous vegetation, or even in a 

 merely picturesque light, we see the depths of the 

 ocean shadowed with submarine groves, often of 

 vast extent, intermixed with meadows, as it were, 

 of the most lively hues ; while the trunks of the 

 larger species, like the giant trees of the tropics, 

 are loaded with innumerable minute kinds as 

 fine as silk or transparent as a membrane. Nor 

 must we forget, that while thousands and tens 

 of thousands of quadrupeds, birds, and insects, 

 depend upon the vegetation immediately sur- 

 rounding us for their very existence, a count- 

 less host of creatures derive protection and 

 nourishment from the plants of the deep, ap- 

 propriated to their use by that merciful Power 

 in whom they live, and move, and have their 

 being, whose goodness is over all his works. 

 Some of the Algae, placed, on account of the 

 simplicity of their structure, at the bottom of 



