XVlll INTRODUCTION.
laiulors soinctiines use them ior fishing-lines. “ In Scalp»
Day, near Kirkwall, in Orkney,” relates Mr N e i l l , “ we have
sailed through meadows of it iu a pinnace not without some
dilhculty, where the water was hetween three and four fathoms
deep, and where, of course, the waving weeds must at
least liave heeii from twenty to th irty feet long.” Laminaria
digitata and buUmsa are more rohust, the former having a stalk
as thick and as long as a stout walking-stick, and a large fiat
maiiy-cleft frond at the summit. I t is a social species, grows
erect in the water, and reminds the spectator of a palm-like
tropical forest, on a small scale. Laminaria Indbosa has sometimes
so lai’ge a head th a t a single plant is as much as a man
can carry. I t is in the southern hemisphere, however, th a t we
must look for the most wonderful examples of marine vegetation.
Tha Lessoniafuscescens, descrihcdhyM.BoRY d e S t V in c e n t ,
is twenty-five or thirty feet high, and has a tru n k often as
thick as a man’s thigh, which divides into numerous hranches,
each terminated hy a lanceolate frond. The Laminaria buc-
cinalis of the Cape of Good Hope is much larger than our
L . digitata, and is furnished with a hollow stem, which the
natives convert into a kind of horn, whence it has acquired:
the name of Trumpet-weed. But the longest of all known
Algoe, though at the same time comparatively slender, are
the Macrocystes, the most common of which is the M. pyri-
fera. This appears to he the sea-weed reported hy navigators
to he from 500 to 1500 feet in length; the leaves
are long and narrow, and at the hase of each is placed
a vesicle filled with air, without which it would he impossible
for the plant to support its enormous length in the
water, the stem being not thicker than the finger, and the
upper hranches as slender as common packthread. All those
Algoe destined to resist the force and agitation of stormy
seas, have roots peculiarly adapted to take the firmest hold
of the rocks, which they gi-apple hy means of tough and
thick fibres. Other species of shorter duration, or presenting
less surface to be acted on by the waves, are generally
fixed hy a simple shield-like base or disk.
Man, who has been humorously defined to he a cooking
INTRODUCTION. xix
animal, not coûtent with tlie tribute of fish leiidcrcd to him
hy the Ocean, converts many of lier vegetable ])roductioiis
into articles of diet. Rhodmnenia palmatu, the duhe of the
Scots, dillesk of the Irish, and saccharine Fucus of the Ice-
landérs, is consumed in considerable quantities throughout
the maritime countries of the north of Europe, and in the
Grecian Archipelago ; Iridoea edidis is still occasionally used,
both in Scotland and the south-west of England. Porphyra
laciniata and vulgaris is stewed, and hrouglit to our tables as
a luxury, under the name of Laver .• and even the JJlva latis-
sima or Green Laver is not slighted in the absence of the
Forphyroe. Entermmrpha compressa, a common species on
our shores, is regarded, according to G a u d ic h a u d , as an esculent
by the Sandwich Islanders. Laurentia pinnatifida,
distinguished for its pungency, and the young stalks and
fronds of Laminaria digitata— tho former called Pepper-dulse,
tlie la tte r Tangle—were often eaten in Scotland, and even
now, though rarely, the old cry, “ Buy dulse and tangle,” may
be heard in the streets of Edinhurgli. When stripped of the
thin part, the beautiful Alaria esculenta forms a part of the
simple fare of the poorer classes in Ireland, Scotland, Iceland,
Denmark, and the Faroe Islands.
To go farther from home, we find the large Laminaria potatorum
of Australia, furnishing the ahorigiiies with a proportion
of their “ instruments, vessels and food.” On the
authority of B o r y d e S t V in c e n t , the Durvilloea utilis, and
other L a m in a r ie æ , constitute an equally important resource
to the poor on the west coast of South America *. In Asia,
several species of Gelidium are made use of to render more
palatable the hot and biting condiments of the east. Some
undetermined species of this genus also furnish tlie materials
of which the celebrated edible Swallows’ nests are composed.
A marine production, Dr G i l l i e s informs me, is also commonly eaten in
South America by the Roman Catholics during lent, under the supposition
that it is a sea-weed ; but, from the specimens brought home by that gentle,
man, it is clearly of an animal nature, belonging to some genus not fiir from
Alcyonium.
b 2
i I;