526 Dr. W. H. Harvey’s Account of the Marine Botany of 
Algae, collected by Mr. Mylne, was presented to me by the late Dr. Charles 
Lemann, of London, and is now incorporated with the Dublin University Her- 
barium. This series, though small, contains several not ascertained by Preiss, 
and the specimens are generally more copiously collected, and in better order. 
I have received a few others from my friend J. Backhouse, of York, who pro- 
cured them at Fremantle, during his visit to the colony. Collections of Algae, 
I am informed, have been repeatedly made in this colony by amateurs, chiefly 
ladies ; but respecting their contents the botanical world is no wiser, as they 
have been dispersed hither and thither among friends at home. 
This is all the information I possess respecting previous algological re- 
searches in Western Australia. My own observations were made between 
January and August, 1854, at a few widely separated points on this extensive 
coast ; not, perhaps, at the best possible collecting stations, but at those which 
were most accessible. These were King George’s Sound and Cape Riche, on 
the southern coast; and Fremantle, Garden Island, and Rottnest Island, all in 
the immediate vicinity of Swan River, on the western coast. I shall briefly 
describe the features of the coast of these places. 
I landed at King George’s Sound in January, and remained till the end of 
February ; and I revisited this shore in August. My head-quarters were at the 
little town of Albany, situated on the shores of Princess Royal Harbour, an 
oval, land-locked, lake-like basin, with a very narrow entrance; and I made fre- 
quent excursions on foot to the coasts in the vicinity, chiefly to Middleton Bay, 
distant about three miles ; and also dredged repeatedly in various parts of the 
Sound between Bald Head and the opposite sliores. The vegetation of the 
enclosed harbour is, as might be expected, very difierent from that of the more 
exposed Sound. Its shores are generally sandy, shoaling to a considerable 
distance from the margin, leaving a very broad marginal belt of less than two 
fathoms in depth at high water, and in many places of less than one fathom. 
The tides rise and fall very irregularly, being much influenced by the wind. 
The rise varies from two to four feet ; and there is generally but one tide in the 
twenty-four hours. Now and then, however, I have observed two tides. The 
depth of the central basin varies from five to seven fathoms. About the entrance 
the shores are rocky and rather steep, the rocks being coarse granites perhaps 
the least adapted of any to the growth of Algte. In all the shallow water round 
