IIS COMMON SEAWEEDS. 



k 



Some shipwrecked sailors, making a fire with the 

 dried weed amidst fine river sand, found the strange 

 transparent substance in the ashes which gave the 

 first hint of our window panes. What should we 

 have done for soap without those sticks of tangle ? 

 And do we remember that iodme, like the violet mist 

 of the Arabian tales, rises from the burning kelp — a 

 genie whose power gives back the lost, the absent, 

 the beloved ? Did not the Calotype, the Daguerreo- 

 type, owe their birth to this subtile essence, compelling 

 the sun itself to be a portrait painter ? 



"Well may those banners float out upon the sea, and 

 well may we ponder on the tangled fronds cast up by 

 the storm. There is subject for a long lesson and for 

 a song of praise in the weather-beaten stems of old 

 Laminaria Digitata. 



" The sea- wort, floating: on- the waves, or rolled up high along the shore, 



Ye counted useless and vile, heaping on it names of contempt; 



Yet hath it gloriously triumphed, and man been humbled in his igno- 

 rance. 



Por health is in the freshness of its savour, and it cumberetli the beach 

 with wealth; 



Comforting the tossings of pain with its violet-tinctured essence; 



And by its humbler ashes enriching many proud. 



Be this, then, a lesson to thy soul," that thou reckon nothing worth- 

 less, 



Because thou heedest not its use, nor knowestth > virtues thereof. 



And herein, as thou walkest by the sea, shall weeds be a type and an 

 earnest 



Of the stored and uncounted riches lying hid in all the creatures of 

 God." 



Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy. 



Laminabta Bulbosa (Sea-furbelows, Eurbelowed 

 Hangers). — When this plant is young the frond is 

 plane and undivided, the stem short ; the root is 

 merely fibrous, with a knob near it ; as it grows this 

 knob enlarges, becomes hollow, covers the root, and 

 throws out strong fibres, which move the growing 

 plant to the rocks in deep water. Sometimes this 



