42 HANDY BOOK OF 



the specific should bear the name of a country rich in marine 

 productions, as also the favourite residence of their most 

 distinguished votary. 



The microscope is a revealer of things hitherto invisible. 

 Examine by its aid a bunch of the hairy Grloiosiphonia 

 (Glcriosiphonia capillaris), and what exquisite transparency 

 is everywhere perceptible. The pyramidal and thickly- 

 branched tufts, of a fine clear rosy crimson hue, look well in 

 their native tide-pool ; and the artist who essays to paint 

 them, may delineate an object of exceeding beauty; but the 

 microscope discovers that the whole plant, being equally 

 fragile and delicate of texture, and exposed to the ebbing 

 and flowing of the tide, is protected by an extraneous 

 coating. Thus among land-plants, when the stems are 

 hollow, and the places of their growth liable to be swept 

 over by fierce] winds, the material of which they are com- 

 posed is so condensed on the surface as to possess nearly the 

 hardness of metal. This peculiarity is very obvious in the 

 bamboo tribe. Silex is one of their component parts ; and 

 if two pieces of bamboo are rubbed together, they emit a 

 pale light. Corn stalks, with those of grasses, are similarly 

 protected ; they contain potash sufficient to form glass with 

 their flint ; and if a wheat or barley straw, or even a stalk 

 of hay, be subjected to the action of a blow-pipe, a perfect 

 globule of hard glass may be obtained. And, as in land- 

 plants that are exposed to storms of wind and rain, a pe- 

 culiarity of structure or external coating is required, so also 

 in such of marine growth as are liable to be affected by 

 sudden inundations. Of this, the hairy Gloiosiphonia offers 

 a familiar instance. Its growing place, as already men- 

 tioned, is a tide-pool, into which the waters often rush with 

 tremendous violence, foaming and recoiling, and whirling 

 round and round ; while the meek and tender plant, thus 

 wondrously protected by an extraneous coating, keeps its 

 place uninjured. 

 Growing occasionally on the same rock as the hairy 



