TIE TELEGRAPH SOIREE AT MANCHESTER. SI 



Ssa- weeds may be classified for the quantity of iodine tliey yield 

 according to their depth of growth, from the surface to what Professor 

 Forbes called the Laminarian region, where the fuci are most abundant, 

 that is, to about four or five fathoms. The iodine increases in measure as 

 the sea-weed increases in growth. From the young weed it is nearly 

 entirely wanting ; but when the plant is thrown off in drift, it has then 

 reached its maximum quantity. The more complete algsa comprehend 

 species that form subaqueous forests of considerable extent in the open 

 ocean, and they there partake of the measureless character of the element 

 that produces them. Some grow as long and narrow leaves, having a 

 vesicle filled with air at the end of each foliation to buoy up the leaves. 

 Navigators describe some as being from 500 to 1,500 feet in length, with 

 stems not thicker than the finger, and branches as slender as packthread. 

 The Zostera, which is one of the fluviales, and not a sea-weed or fucus, 

 spreads like a grassy plain all through the shoal water of many coasts, and 

 as a subaqueous plant must abound in iodine. 



Spanish Town, Jamaica. 



THE TELEGRAPH SOIREE AT THE FREE-TRADE HALL, 

 MANCHESTER. 



CONTRIBUTED BY C. P. VARLEY. 



Not the least interesting event in connection with the visit of the British 

 Association to Manchester was the telegraph soiree, which took place in 

 the large room of the Free-trade Hall, on the evening of the 7th September 

 That vast hall, which, it maybe said, has been "everything by turns, 

 and nothing long," was on that day fitted up as a huge telegraph office, 

 instruments of every description being exhibited, from the first invented 

 to the most recent production, — in fact, such a collection as would enable 

 the visitor to see the gradual improvement which had taken place in the 

 art of telegraphy from 1837 down to the present period. As might have 

 been anticipated, the room was entirely filled by members and associates 

 of the British Association. Amongst those present, there was a large 

 number of fashionably-attired ladies, without whose presence even the 

 most learned assembly is nothing more than a mob ; there were many of our 

 merchant princes, who have amassed large fortunes by the honourable 

 pursuit of commerce ; and there were others mixing in the busy throng 

 whose lives have been devoted to diving deep into the arcana of nature, 

 and whose names have attained a high position in the scientific world. 

 Gazing round that room — seeing that we were surrounded by instruments, 

 the results of the ingenuity of man, which could transmit a signal round 

 the globe, if a wire were laid, eight times in a second ; and reflecting upon 

 the great amount of genius then present in the aggregate, — who could be 

 blamed for entertaining the thought for a moment that the circle might 

 vol. n. G 



