ON THE [77 



OEIGIN AND MODE OF PEOPAGATION 

 or THE GULE-WEED. 



J-iead before the Linneau Society, May 7, 1850. 



Read a letter, dated May 19th, 1845, addressed by the 

 President to Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, for communica- 

 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 Beaueort, — I am vexed to have 

 kept Baron Humboldt's letter so long, and nov^in returning 

 it, that it should be accompanied by so little satisfactory 

 information on the only one of its queries with' which I 

 could have been supposed to deal, namely, that which 

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

 Aveed. 



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

 Personal Narrative) first supported the more ancient notion, 

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

 from the Gulf of Florida, and deposited in what Major 

 Rennell calls the recipient of that stream. More recently, 

 however, Baron Humboldt has adopted the opinion,^ also 

 held by several travellers, that the Gulf-weed 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 Geographie du Nouveau Contineut, vol. iii, p. 73, and 

 Meyen, Reise, toI. i, p. 36-9. 



