OF THE MARINE ALG.E. 101 



pressed in the ordinary manner ; while at the same time 

 the specimens lose a great deal of their interest and at- 

 tractiveness if their fair proportions are too closely shorn. 

 It is necessary, then, to select a middling- sized example for 

 preservation ; but even a middling-sized example will need 

 a press far beyond the usual limits. Fortunately, the student 

 has no need to dread a failure, so far as his materials are 

 concerned. He has only to cover the floor of a room pretty 

 thickly with sheets of blotting paper — the covered space 

 measuring about six feet by three — and then to lay over 

 this the Laminaria, which must be so far dried beforehand 

 as to have lost the slimy feeling which it usually commu- 

 nicates in the growing state. More sheets of blotting paper 

 being spread over the Algae, the whole is to be covered with 

 a smooth board of corresponding size (or in default of one 

 so large, with several smaller boards), upon which a suffi- 

 cient quantity of bricks should rest. If, after all the pains 

 taken, the specimen is found to be too long for any reasonably 

 sized press, the lower end of the frond may be turned over, 

 not immediately upon the body of the plant, but at an 

 oblique angle — blotting paper being laid inside the joint, so 

 as to keep the parts from actually touching each other, 

 where it is impossible to prevent them from coming together. 

 The papers should be frequently changed, as the thick 

 leathery substance of the frond makes the process of drying 

 somewhat dilatory. However, the business of changing the 

 layers of paper is rendered less tedious, in spite of the 

 bulky nature of the object, on account of the hrm though 

 flexible character of the frond, which allows of its being 

 moved about at will without any fear of damage Of 

 course, a plant containing so large an amount of fluids in its 

 cells requires not only a frequent change of the blotting 

 paper, but also a more than usual amount of time — a 

 fortnight or three weeks will not be found too long — to 

 ensure its being thoroughly dried, and to get rid of all its 

 folds and wrinkles. These last, however, I regret to say, 

 are very apt to return at a later period, as it is impossible 



