INTRODUCTION. 41 



years ago), having received a curious collection of marine 

 plants and corallines, some of them from the Isle of An- 

 glesey in North Wales, and others from Dublin, and wish- 

 ing to preserve the rarest and most beautifully coloured of 

 them, he spread them on paper in water, laying out with 

 care their ramifications and fine filaments, according to the 

 method of M. Buttner, a celebrated botanist of Berlin, to 

 whom, he says, he was indebted for many other very useful 

 practices in botany, so that we see that this mode of pre- 

 paring seaweeds, so common now, was new to this country 

 a century ago, though from what follows he does not seem 

 to have pressed them so as to cause them to adhere to the 

 paper, which is now the general practice, but kept them free, 

 as some still do, when the weeds are meant for fancy-work. 

 After the plants were dried, he fastened them on boards 

 covered with white paper, in such a manner as that they 

 formed a kind of landscape. His friend Dr. Hales, having 

 one day seen his pictures thus formed, was so delighted with 

 them, that he wished him to prepare some of a similar kind 

 for her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales, in 

 order that the young princesses, her daughters, might amuse 

 themselves in trying to imitate them ; and that the marine 

 paintings might be as perfect as possible, he besought him 



