DWARF RINKS OF YERYIERS. 
215 
“ Call us not weeds—we are flowers of the sea, 
For lovely and bright, and gay-tinted are we ; 
And quite independent of culture or showers ; 
Then call us not weeds—we are Ocean’s gay flowers.” 
The first portion of the hook is devoted to the general subject, followed hy a particular account of the genera 
and species. It is well illustrated by twenty coloured plates, by Fitch, on which are given figures of eighty of the 
most distinct and showy forms ; there are also two plates illustrating their fructification. From the chapter on the 
“ vegetation of sea-weeds,” we select the following interesting extract as a specimen :— 
“ In the very end of September 1848, D. Landsborough, jun., 
had brought from the sea-shore some rare nudibranchs, which 
he put in a tumbler of sea water, and placed in a window, with 
a south-east exposure. They lived there for several weeks, and 
when they began to look feeble, they were returned to the sea as 
a reward for their good behaviour. Before I granted manumis¬ 
sion to the beautiful nudibranchs, I had observed at the bottom 
and on the sides of the tumbler, the growth of young Algse. 
The first that I observed were grass-green, consisting of simple 
filaments, without any visible joints. . . There were also a 
number of little dense tufts of browish-olive colour. . . In 
the body of the water were a few long filaments, ahnost colour¬ 
less, finer than human hair, and so limber that they bent under 
the weight of the almost invisible infusoria, when they rested 
from their sportive gambols. Then there were others that were 
just perceptible as small dots by the naked eye, but when seen 
through a pretty powerful lens, they were perfectly circular, 
and of beautiful workmanship. . . Last of all, there was a 
number of very minute branched Algse, just perceptible as a faint 
haze by the naked eye. . . Once a fortnight I pour off the 
water, and give a fresh supply from the sea. 
“ As my object is to aid in rendering my young friends not 
merely algologists, but diligent observers of the phenomena of 
nature, I shall not consider myself bound to adhere rigidly to 
one department of nature’s works. To encourage them in their 
researches, I may mention that a single tumbler of water will 
furnish a rich field for their bright young eyes. This very 
tumbler which showed me the germination of Algse from seed, 
exhibited also some beautiful Yorticellese, and contained num¬ 
berless infusoria of many kinds merrily dancing in all directions, 
and showing that He who made them blessed them with happi¬ 
ness. These animalculites I had seeiFbefore, but in watching 
their sportive gyrations, I was gratified with appearances 
which I had never before observed. Perceiving what I thought 
a little hazy spot on the glass, I applied a lens, and found that 
it did not adhere to the glass, but was moving up and down. 
Afterwards more than a score were observed, some of them 
little semi-pellucid, and I think, hollow balls ; others were like 
broad flattened bonnets, such as are worn by carriers, with an 
aperture for the reception of the head. The largest, however, 
were less than a line in diameter, and of a light-grey colour. 
Alien the tumbler was allowed to remain unmoved, they lay 
invisible at the bottom, but when it was gently agitated they 
mounted up like little balloons to the surface of the water, and 
gradually descended. How they moved I could not tell. The 
surface of the balls, in certain lights, seemed a little hirsute, but 
1 could observe nothing like the motion of cilia. Alien they 
were all in motion, some ascending and others descending, the 
mystic movements of their little spheres presented a very ani¬ 
mated spectacle. 
“But what were my little peripatetic puff-hulls? At first I 
despaired of being able to tell, but fortunately I had beside me 
Sir J. G. Dalyell’s recent publication, and turning over its pages 
and plates, I was delighted to find that what I contemplated with 
so much interest was the progeny of Medusa. I then tried an 
experiment on them which Sir John does not mention having 
done. I took the tumbler into a darkened apartment, and 
giving the glass a smart percussion, instantly my little puff-balls 
sent forth a very brilliant flash of phosphorescent light, showing 
me that in all likelihood they play no very secondary part in 
that beautiful phosphorescence of the sea, which in the wake of 
a vessel I had so often admired in a summer evening. I con¬ 
tinued to watch them in the hope of seeing them transformed into 
Medusa bifida, but frost, of unusual intensity for the season, set 
in after the middle of October, and my medusettes sank under it. 
On trying to rouse them only one attempted to rise, and next 
day it had vanished—like another creature of greater pretension, 
‘fleeing also as a shadow and continuing not.’ On contem¬ 
plating the wonderful works of God, even in this little world of 
water, one is led to exclaim, in the singularly beautiful, and 
truly eloquent words of Hedwig—‘ Truly great and transcen- 
dently beautiful, Oh Jehovah ! are these Thy works, even here 
below. Framed they are in profound wisdom, disclosing all 
their charms only to our lens-aided eyes! How grand, then, 
will those be, which, when this glass has been removed in which 
we see darkly—when this mist of mortality has been scattered—• 
Thou art pledged to reveal hereafter to thy servants that have 
worshipped Thee here in sincerity and truth! Ah me! how 
grand!’ ” 
Under such, teaching, the study of sea-weeds, while calculated both to please and instruct the juvenile mind, 
has the still higher recommendation of leading the thoughts onwards to those flowers of immortality, which are to 
he gathered, on the bright shores that lie beyond the Ocean of Time.—M. 
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DWARF FIVES OF VERVIERS* 
7 IEGE and Verviers are the only two towns in Belgium in which the Pinh, including all the 
Jd different kinds and classes, is held in honour; and there are in these towns extensive and 
influential societies for the promotion of the culture and exhibition of this flower. Even at Brussels 
amateurs would scarcely believe that the growers belonging to the towns already named, can exhibit 
pots of Dwarf Pinks in which from 180 to 200 flowers may be counted; and yet nothing is more 
common in these localities where the cultivation of the Pink is established. We may easily perceive 
with what class of the population the cultivation of Dwarf Pinks is most in favour. If the Pink is not 
the flower of the rich, neither is it that of the poor. It has more of dignity and greater value ; it is 
the flower of honest labour. At Liege, for instance, the most industrious and the most moral part of 
the population is that including the colliers, who are famous for the good management of them Aundow- 
gardens, which comprise, in a great measure, these Dwarf Pinks. The same observation applies to the 
artizans and mechanics of Verviers. 
In a treatise published by Hoog [P Hogg], in 1820, we find mentioned the double Dwarf Carnation 
* Abridged from La Belgique Horticole , a very interesting new periodical, edited by Prof. Morren. 
