162 FOKEST CULTURE AND 



A thousand of other industrial purposes might yet 

 be served by a close knowladge of plants. So the 

 designer might choose patterns far more beautiful 

 from the simple and ever-perfect beauty of nature than 

 he gains from distorted forms copied into much of our 

 tapestry ; thus a room, now-a-days, as a rule, decorat- 

 ed with unmeaning and often, as far as imitation of 

 nature is concerned, impossible figures, might become, 

 geographically or phytographicaUy, quite instructive. 

 If here the founders of territorial estates — some, per- 

 haps, as large as the palatinates of the Middle Ages — 

 should wish to perpetuate the custom of choosing a 

 symbol for family arms, they — as the Highland clans, 

 who adopted special plants of their native mountains 

 for a distinguishing badge — might select, as the an- 

 cestral emblem, the flowers of our soil, destined, per- 

 haps, to be traced, not without pride, by many a 

 lineage through a hundred generations.' 



Precise knowledge of even the oceanic vegetation, 

 in its almost infinite display of forms, offers not mere- 

 ly the most delicate objects for design, but brings be- 

 fore us its respective value for manure, or the impor- 

 tance of various herbage on which fishes will browse ; 

 while such marine weeds may as well be transferred 

 from ocean to ocean, as ova of trout have been brought 

 from the far north to these distant southern latitudes. 

 "Who could foresee when first iodine was accidentally 

 discovered in sea - weeds, through soda factories, or 

 bromine subsequently appeared as a mere substance 

 of curiosity, what powerful therapeutic agents there- 

 by were gained for medicine, what unique results they 

 would render for chemical processes, of what incalcu- 

 lable sdYf^ntages tliej^ \yould prove in physiological 



