AMONGST THE SEAWEEDS. 29 



commonest of all seaweeds, is Codium tomentosum, 

 the Woolly Skin-weed. It is of a fine dark green 

 colour, and may be found in the deep rock-pools 

 that are never left dry. Its texture is sponge- 

 like, and it is covered with delicate filaments. A 

 prominent order of this group is that which com- 

 prises the Ulvacece. The best known of these are 

 the black-green Porphyra, the Enteromorpha, 

 nearly as common as Codium, called so because 

 of its intestine-like tubular fronds, and the bright 

 green, flat, and delicate Ulva, whose membranaceous 

 frond, waved at the margin, grows sometimes to a 

 length of two feet. 



With one or two exceptions specimens of all 

 the foregoing, besides many others not referred to, 

 lie before me, the results of a few days' exploration 

 of a mile or two of shore ; and as I glance over 

 these plant-pictures shining out from their white 

 background, they revive for a while the delight 

 with which I sought and gathered them, and some- 

 thing of the awe which the great solemn ocean 

 awakened in the mind while its lovely treasures 

 were being culled comes upon me even now while 

 I admire them. What produces devouter or more 

 enduring impressions than to walk along the margin 

 of the murmuring sea, stopping now and again to 

 examine the wonders it casts up at our feet ; or to 

 gaze over its expanse stretching out to where it 

 seems to touch the sky, as though to bring into 

 relief our littleness of knowledge, and at the same 

 time to suggest the vastness of our intellectual 

 capacities ? 



