ON THE m 



ORIGIN AND MODE OP PROPAGATION 

 OP THE GULP-WEED. 



Kcad before the Linncan Society, Maj 7, 1850. 



Read a letter, dated May IQtli, 1845, addressed by the 

 President to Admiral Sir Prancis Beaufort, for comnmnica- 

 tion to Baron Alexander von Humboldt, " On the Origin and 

 Mode of Propagation of the Gulf-weed." The letter is as 

 follows : — 



'' My dear Captain Beaufort, — I am vexed lo have 

 kept Baron Humboldt's letter so long, and now in rctnrnino- 

 it, that it should be accompanied by so little satisfactory 

 information on the only one of its quci'ies with which I 

 conld have been supposed to deal, namely, thiit which 

 relates to the origin and mode of propagation of the Gulf- 

 weed. 



" On this subject it appears that M. de Hinnboldt (in his 

 Personal Narrative) first supported the more ancient notion, 

 that the plant, originally fixed, was brought with the stream 

 from the Gulf of Plorida, and deposited in what Major 

 Rennell calls the recipient of that stream. More recently, 

 however, Baron Hund^oldt has adopted the o])inion,^ also 

 held by several travellers, that the Gidf-wecd originates and 

 propagates itself where it is now found. To the adoption 

 of this view it appears that he has been led chiefly by the 



Histoire de la Geoirrapliic du Xouvcau Coutincnl, vol. iii, p. 73, and 

 Meyeu, lleise, vol. i, p. 3G-9. 



