OF THE MARINE ALGiE. 
101 
pressed in the ordinary manner , while at the same time 
the specimens lose a great deal of their interest and at- 
tractiveness if their fair proportions are too closely shorn. 
It is necessary, then, to select a middling- sized example for 
preservation ; but even a middling-sized example will need 
a press far beyond the usual limits. Fortunately, the student 
has no need to dread a failure, so far as his materials are 
concerned. He has only to cover the floor of a room pretty 
thickly with sheets of blotting paper — the covered space 
measuring about six feet by three — and then to lay over 
this the Laminaria, which must be so far dried beforehand 
as to have lost the slimy feeling which it usually commu- 
nicates in the growing state. More sheets of blotting paper 
being spread over the Algse, the whole is to be covered with 
a smooth board of corresponding size (or in default of one 
so large, with several smaller boards), upon which a suffi- 
cient quantity of bricks should rest. If, after all the pains 
taken, the specimen is found to be too long for any reasonably 
sized press, the lower end of the frond may be turned over, 
not immediately upon the body of the plant, but at an 
oblique angle — blotting paper being laid inside the joint, so 
as to keep the parts from actually touching each other, 
where it is impossible to prevent them from coming together. 
The papers should be frequently changed, as the thick 
leathery substance of the frond makes the process of drying 
somewhat dilatory. However, the business of changing the 
layers of paper is rendered less tedious, in spite of the 
bulky nature of the object, on account of the firm though 
flexible character of the frond, which allows of its being 
moved about at will without any fear of damage. Of 
course, a plant containing so large an amount of fluids in its 
cells requires not only a frequent change of the blotting 
paper, but also a more than usual amount of time — a 
fortnight or three weeks will not be found too long — to 
ensure its being thoroughly dried, and to get rid of all its 
folds and wrinkles. These last, however, I regret to say, 
are very apt to return at a later oeriod, as it is impossible 
