INTRODUCTION. 7 
of botany, it is very probable that the extent of his acquaintance with sea- 
weeds was limited to the rejectamenta of the sea; for the rebuff referred 
to took place some sixty or seventy years ago, at which period a knowledge 
of seaweeds was very scanty indeed; numbers of species which are now 
familiar to every collector had not then been discovered, the dredge was 
hardly in use, and the microscope was in its infancy. Things, however, 
are very different now, and there is really no excuse for people who may 
desire some acquaintance with marine algex, talking of the difficulty of 
finding beautiful plants, of learning their names, and of mounting and 
arranging them. I have very often been appealed to for information as to 
the best method of acquiring knowledge on this subject, and my invariable 
advice has been, as I write it once more, read some standard work on sea- 
weeds in the first place, study the figures of the plants, for indeed good 
illustrations are indispensable to a perfect comprehension of the best des- 
criptions of species, and then go and gather the flowers or weeds of the 
ocean, call them what you will, and he or she must be a churl indeed who 
is not quickly fascinated with such an occupation, which not only brings 
health unsought, but elevates the mind, and thus by pointing through 
nature up to Nature’s God, enlarges man’s ideas of the wisdom, power, and 
goodness of the Creator. 
I have often been amused to see the strange, not to say absurd, mistakes 
made by beginners in naming their plants; and I doubt not many a 
botanist as well as myself has been provoked at the disinclination so 
frequently evinced by amateur collectors to anything approaching study 
by means of the microscope, as though it were possible to acquire know- 
ledge in botanical pursuits without its help, or at least that of a good lens 
or magnifier. Look, for instance, at the Cladophora, to a few of which I 
shall call the reader’s attention by means of my figures of magnified 
branchlets. True, an experienced algologist knows at once what is the 
species he has before him, but he did not always know it, and, although the 
eye soon learns to detect differences in appearance, knowledge of specific 
distinctions among the filamentous aud delicately-branched seaweeds can 
only be acquired by means of the microscope. 
