XXVlll INTRODUCTION. 



bottom must have sustained miniature forests of 

 alg-ae, while its waters were darkened by immense 

 shoals of fish. Again, Fuci abounded in the seas 

 of the Cretaceous era; the fossil forms of the 

 Conferva (Confervites) are occasionally met with in 

 transparent quartz pebbles, and in chalk. We learn 

 from the abundant distribution of the fucoidal re- 

 mains throughout these deposits, that long ages 

 ago, ere the earth was inhabited hj man, the vege- 

 tation of the ocean flourished in the same luxu- 

 riant beauty, and formed, in like manner as it 

 now does in our seas, the food and shelter of ani- 

 mal life. 



The Fucus vesiculosus afibrds excellent winter 

 provender for cattle. Turner says, ^^ In the islands 

 of Jura and Skye they regularly feed upon it during 

 winter." It is the Kile-tang of Norway, and cow- 

 weed of the north-west of Scotland and the west of 

 Ireland ; in Gothland the people boil it with coarse 

 flour, and feed their pigs upon it, whence they call 

 it swi7ie tang. Dr. Drummond observes, that " It 

 is much used by the poorer classes about Larne 



