THE SEA-WEEDS AT HOME AND ABROAD. 211 
space proves not so dreary or desolate as it appears, for 
often our most interesting and best friends have the rudest 
exterior. Perhaps he knows something about the lichens, 
those dull green, grayish, yellow, bright orange, black 
crusts, scales, fringes, torn, ragged felts ; or perchance those 
dry, crisp, brittle, crimson tipped, blunt tipped, sharp 
pointed, branching anomalies which cover many an acre of 
sterility where nothing else grows, and where the surfaces 
of rocks and the rough bark of trees cannot offer them any 
chance. He will be able to introduce you through these 
desiccated and seemingly lifeless plants, the lineal descendants 
of the first forms of vegetation which appeared on the dry 
- and solid earth, to the wonderful and more grotesque, more 
developed, sometimes enormous sea-weeds which, at the birth 
of Creation, sprung into activity as plants in the "waters 
which covered the face of the deep." Nay, you need not heed 
these unless you choose, although within every one of them 
lies enfolded a wondrous tale, locking up in the recesses of 
their natures, health and healing and joy. Notice too as you 
walk, the fair lowers springing up on every side. If autumn, 
or early winter, a bright October’s day or a green Christ- 
mas, you may yet find for your admiration such seed-vessels, 
such starry ealyces, such feathered down, such inimitable 
irifles as no gold could purchase or art fabricate. 
Such rough and confused pasture lands lie between Rock- 
port and the sea; between Gloucester, between Marblehead, 
Cohasset, Scituate and many famous places, and the beat- 
ing ocean. By the very marge of one such beach I have 
found plants seen nowhere else by me except on mountain 
sides. Think of Rockport in July, lovely in the masses of 
mountain laurel, and this fine native shrub opening its clus- 
ters of flowers within sight of the very sea. From the land 
side the very odors of Araby the Blest come over the Man- 
chester and Gloucester waters from the magnolia, and glad- 
dens the heart of the returning fisherman. The very rocks, 
worn smooth by the surf and rounded and polished, extend 
