The English flora - SeaweedAfrica

ALGJE. 249
especially in the north of Europe, and some are esteemed great
delicacies. Cattle, at certain seasons of the year, repair to the
shores at low tide and devour the sea-weeds with great eager-
ness. From the marine Alga?, iodine, a new principle and possessed
of very remarkable properties, is derived. It has been
successfully employed in the cure of goitres ; a disease which,
Dr. Gillies informs us, has yielded in South America to the
application of the stem of a certain Fucus, long before
iodine was employed in civilized Europe. In the manufactory
of kelp these same plants are of vast importance and the value
of land rose in Scotland, (during the war on the Continent
and when we Mere deprived of the means of obtaining a pure
alkali from the south of Europe,) in a most extraordinary degree
; so that the rocky boundary of our island yielded a great
revenue to the different proprietors, and to our government, by
the duty that was paid on the article produced. Acanthophora
muscoides and Gigartina Helminthochorton hold a place in the
pharmacopoeia as vermifuges. Chondrus crispus has been of
late largely collected in Ireland, after it has lain and become
bleached upon the beach. and is usedvery generally as a substitute
for isinglass, in making blanc-mange. The famous '• edible nests'
(the nest of the swallow, called Hirundo esculenta) are said to
be made from a species of sea-weed : and lastly I may mention
that sea-weed i< employed to a vast extent in the manuring of
land in the vicinity of the coast, either thrown on fresh, or first
laid in a heap to ferment and mixed with other vegetable
manures.
Low as this Order of plants is in the scale of vegetable beings, it
is yet the one which approaches the nearest to certain animal*.
Indeed
«
1 1 1 - ablest naturalists have been unable to draw the line
of distinction between the least perfect of these and the (ess
highly organized of animals.
In no country have the Algffi been more successfully studied
than in Great Britain; and when the extent of our coast is con-
sidered, our numerous rivers, lakes and other situations favourable
to their growth, it will be at once seen that lew can have
better opportunities of studying them than the naturalists1 of
Our islands. Woodward and Turner and Dillwyn have ODOSt
extensively investigated ami described our marine and fresh
water Alga?, ami the late Miss Hutching of Bantry, ami Mrs.
Griffiths of Torquay, have studied this family of plants with a
degree of perseverance, ardour ami success, which has ranked
their names with the most eminent algologists. Stackhouse,
Laraouroux, Agardh and Lyngbye hare I a among
the first t" separate the old genera of Fucus, f Iva and ( '< nu mi,
under which almosl the whole of the present Algt wert arranged,
into distinct and more or less well-marked genera* To
this subject) Dr. Greville of Edinburgh has long devoted bis