212 WILLIAM HENRY HARVEY 



The circumstances under which this plant was found must 

 have made Harvey's mouth water. 



" My specimen," he writes, " was picked up by a lady who 

 accidentally landed for a few hours in a little harbour, into 

 which the ship put during a gale, and she describes the shore 

 as covered with the most wonderful profusion of plants and 

 animals. She got all the pocket handkerchiefs of the party and 

 filled them with what came first to hand, and in this hasty way 

 picked up sixty different kinds of sponges, forty of which are 

 new species, and several Algae, among which was the above 

 described beauty. Her husband (a captain) is going out again, 

 and promises to gather all he can meet with. Don't I hope he 

 may have a run in again in a squall ! " 



Harvey now commenced the publication of the first of his 

 larger works on seaweeds the classical Phycologia Britannica, 

 a series of 360 coloured quarto plates, drawn on stone by his 

 own hand, representing all the species then known to inhabit 

 the British Isles, and accompanied by suitable letterpress : the 

 whole taking five years to complete. This work represented an 

 immense advance in the knowledge of British sea-weeds, and, by 

 the beauty and excellence of its plates, did much to popularize 

 the study of these interesting plants. 



In the following year he began his Nereis Australis, or Algae 

 of the Southern Ocean. This was the first fruits of a compre- 

 hensive scheme of publication, which in its entirety was to "form 

 a compendious picture of the vegetation of the ocean," the 

 Nereis Australis being followed by a similar Nereis Tropica and 

 Nereis Borealis ; but only a section of the scheme was carried 

 out, and publication stopped with the issue of 120 pages of 

 letterpress and fifty coloured plates, drawn as usual by Harvey 

 himself. In 1849 he issued Tlie Sea-side Book, a popular 

 account of the natural history of the sea-shore, which ran through 

 several editions. 



About this time he secured an additional appointment which, 

 while it added to his professional duties, also increased his oppor- 

 tunities for research. The Royal Dublin Society, founded in 

 1 73 1 for the improvement of husbandry, manufactures, and other 

 useful arts and sciences, and aided by considerable government 



