108 A VISIT TO THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 



garden, in the South Court of the Eastern Annexe, is to be found perhaps 

 a larger amount of rare and useful information than in any other case of 

 equal size in the entire Exhibition. The general public read of a great 

 many metals in school-books, which, except upon occasions like the pre- 

 sent, they never see ; and such an opportunity for oc ularly learning some 

 of the elementary bodies which compose material things, should not be 

 neglected. 



Platinum is a metal which many are accustomed to regard as more 

 curious than useful ; but a glance at Messrs. Johnston and Matthey's case 

 will soon convince the observer that platinum is eminently practical. In 

 addition to native platinum, (and this metal is invariably found pure,) 

 there is a massive ingot weighing no less than 218 lbs. of the value of 

 3840?. and this is in itself a great triumph in the metallurgy of platinum, 

 considering how difficult it is to fuse. Platinum wire, foil, sheet, cru- 

 cibles and capsules, cones for lightning conductors, telescopic tubes 

 soldered with the same metal, and two fine retorts for distillation of 

 acids, all demonstrate its growing importance. Besides this very com- 

 plete platinum series, tbere is some pure metallic iridium, pure silicium, 

 crystallised, metallic boron, palladium foil, and the ammonio-perchlo- 

 ride of palladium, gold in all its forms, and, lastly, some preparations 

 of uranium, including a specimen of the oxide of that metal known to 

 mineralogists as pitch-blende. 



Those great sea monsters which, a few years since, served to terrify 

 nervous sailors, and astonish the students of natural history, have to all 

 appearance ceased to exist ; or, if the sea-weed theory be correct, then 

 indeed, the great sea-serpent is to be found in the Exhibition of 1862, 

 " hung, drawn, and quartered," and the several portions of his grisly 

 frame applied to a great variety of usefid purposes. It is well known to 

 botanists that certain kinds of algae exist of great size and length, as 

 well as serpent-like in form, and when the rumours about sea serpents 

 prevailed, they pointed out the great probability of the apparition being 

 nothing more than a length of such weeds, floating upon the waters ; 

 the appearance of life being imparted by the undulating motion of the 

 waves. The genus Laminaria is peculiarly possessed of the animal cha- 

 racteristics above mentioned, and it is a species of this tribe, with its 

 singular and highly novel application, which arrested my attention the 

 other day at South Kensington. Adjoining the large cases devoted to 

 the collection of products from the Bahamas, I espied what, to all appear- 

 ance, was a case of English manufactures in horn ; and should have passed 

 it over as a very ordinary exhibit but for a label with the words, South 

 African Algce upon it ; and after a few minutes' examination, I discovered, 

 greatly to my surprise, that the entire contents of the case were manu- 

 factured from South African Algae, of which a bunch in its crude con- 

 dition was suspended in the corner. 



The weed in question is scientifically termed Laminaria buccinalis or 



