96 SEA-WEEDS. 



drous things to the great Maker of the universe, 

 we might exclaim with Job, " Lo, these are a part 

 of his ways, but what whisper-word is heard of 

 him!"* ' 



But in this chapter our business is not so much 

 with the unseen as with the visible. It is not of 

 the hidden wonders of ocean that we must tell, 

 but leaving the less known forms of Algce, we 

 must proceed to describe some of the most com- 

 mon kinds of our sea-weeds, in such simple manner 

 as may enable the wanderer by the shores of our 

 island to recognise the forms most familiar to the 

 eye. And attempting no scientific classification, 

 we shall simply divide the sea- weeds into the three 

 great groups into which botanists arrange them, 

 which are the olive-green, the red, and the green 

 sea-weeds. 



At almost any part of the year we may find on 

 our shores abundant specimens of some of the 

 coarse olive-green sea- weeds, the Melanosperms of 

 the botanist. There they lie, all withered up by 

 the sunshine, or fresh and tough as they have just 

 been dashed up on the shore, 



" HurPd out of darkness by the uprooting surges." 



The piers about the sea are blackened by some of 

 them, and their long fronds are beaten by the 

 waves which fall upon the rocks on the beach. 

 The name of flags, derived from their flagging and 

 drooping positions, is frequently appropriate to 

 these sea- weeds, and often for miles along the 

 rocky coast, the distant scene seems black by 

 the profusion of their olive fronds, which, when 



* A learned writer thus renders Job xxvi. 14. 



