1722, and now occupies, for part of the year, a great portion of the population of the Scotch Islands. The sea-weeds belong to that deseription of plants which are called Cryptogamic; and the method by which they were propagated was unknown until of late years, when their minute seeds were discovered. The Cryptogamic plants contain the sea-weeds (Alga), the mosses (Musci), the mushrooms (Fungi), and the ferns (Filices). In all the rest of the vegetable kingdom, the vessels which supply the plant with nourishment are continued from the roots to the extremities of the leaves, so that a faded plant will revive if the root or lower end is placed in water; but this is not the case with the Cryptogamia, in which that portion only of a faded specimen will recover which is completely immersed in the water. The only use of the root seems to be to fix the plant to the rock on which it grows. like fucus (Fucus filum), has been found thirty or forty feet in length. Some of the small kinds of seaweeds affords most beautiful objects for the microscope, which displays to great advantage their singular structure. THE ROCK SAMPHIRE. SAMPHIRE (Crithmum Maritimum) never grows but on the sea-shore, and yet it never grows within reach of the waves,-that is to say, it is never so near as to be wholly covered by the waters. It happened not long since, that a knowledge of this fact was useful in a way and at a time when botanic knowledge might, beforehand, have been expected to be of little practical importance. During a violent storm in November, 1821, a vessel passing through the English Channel, was driven on shore near Beachy Head; and the whole of the crew being washed overboard, four escaped from the wreck, only to be delivered, as they thought, to a more lingering and fearful, from its being a more gradually and equally inevitable death; for, having in the darkness The growth of sea-weeds is extremely rapid. This fact was as certained at the time a stone beacon was in the course of erection near the entrance to the Frith of Forth. In November, 1813, when the work- of the night been cast upon the men who were preparing the foundations were obliged to relinquish their labours, owing to the state of the weather, the part of the rock on which they had been at work had been completely cleared of scaweed, and the surface in part chiselled; but on recommencing their operations in May, 1814, they were surprised to find that the sea-weeds were as abundant as ever; and this rapid growth had taken place during an inclement winter. Some of the sea-weeds attain a very great size. The Fucus giganteus of the Pacific Ocean is several hundred feet in length; some specimens have been seen as much as 800. In our own seas the thread breakers, they found, when they had climbed up the highest of these low rocks, that the waves were rapidly encroaching on their asylum; and they doubted not, that when the tide should be at its height, the whole range would be entirely covered with water. The darkness of the night prevented any thing being seen beyond the spot upon which they stood, and this was continually decreasing by the successive encroachments of each advancing wave. The violence of the storm left no hope that their feeble voices, even if raised to the uttermost, could be heard on shore; and they knew that amidst the howling of the blast their cries could not reach no other car than that of God. What human arm could give assistance in such a situation? even if their distresses were known, how vain were the help of man! The circle of their existence here seemed gradually lessening before their eyes; their little span of earth gradually contracting to their destruction; already they had climbed to the highest points, and already the furious waters followed them, fling- spring up in the midst of corrup ing over their devoted heads the tion, and to draw their nourishforemost waves, as heralds of their ment from putrefaction, the fastispeedily approaching dissolution. dious observer turns from them At this moment one of these wretch- | with disgust; and the true naturaled men, while they were debating ist, while aware of their importwhether they should not, in this ance in the scale of nature, finding extremity of ill, throw themselves them too perishable in their nature upon the mercy of the waves, hop- to be easily preserved in his caing to be cast upon some higher binet, too capricious in their growth ground, as, even if they failed to to be cultivated in his garden, and reach it, a sudden would be better too sportive in their forms to be than a lingering death-in this dire successfully delineated with his extremity, one of these despair-, pencil, leaves them with regret, to ing creatures, to hold himself more ! rot on the dunghill, or to wither in firmly to the rock, grasped a weed, the wood." which, even wet as it was, he well knew, as the lightning's sudden flash afforded a momentary glare, was not a fucus, but a root of Samphire; and he recollected that this plant never grows under water. This then became more than an olive branch of peace, a messenger of mercy; by it they knew that He who alone can calm the raging of the seas, at whose voice alone the winds and the waves are still, had placed his landmark, had planted his standard here, and by this sign they were assured that He had said to the wild waste of waters, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." Trusting, then, to the promise of this Angel of the Earth, they remained stationary during the remainder of that dreadful, but then comparatively happy night; and in the morning they were seen from the cliffs above, and conveyed in safety to the shore.-BURNETT's Introductory Lecture. THE MUSHROOM. THIS well-known production belongs to the tribe of fungi. The fungi appear to form the last link in the chain of vegetable life, connecting organized bodies with inorganized matter. "In simplicity of form and structure, they differ widely from the other vegetable tribes, as they present neither leaves nor flowers. Destined to They were formerly supposed to spring from the glutinous results of putrefied substances, but the wiser views of later philosophers have clearly shown that the impious doctrine of organized bodies being produced from inorganized matter, without the intervention of the creative power of the Maker of all things, is a wicked fallacy, and utterly at variance with all the laws of nature, as far as our limited powers have been able to trace them. For a long time the seeds of the mushroom-tribe remained undiscovered; but recent and more careful observations have shown their existence, though their minute size renders them very difficult of detection. Perhaps no class of vegetables is more widely distributed than that of the fungi; for not only do the boleti which are found on decayed wood, and on the borders of forests; the toadstools, the puff-balls, and a variety of other larger species, belong to this tribe; but every indication of mouldiness on old leather, badly-preserved fruit, mildew, &c., is but a collection of innumerable minute productions of the same nature. "The fungi exhibit some of the finest colours of the vegetable kingdom. Nature having withheld from this portion of her plants those flowers which form the chief beauties of the higher orders, and even the leaves with which they are clothed, has profusely scattered her colours over the whole surface of the mushrooms, ornamenting the cap with one colour, the gills with a second, and the stem with a third. "Let but the lover of natural beauty free his mind from prejudice, and then examine the forms and colouring of the fungi, and he will be compelled to admit that many of them rival in symmetry and splendour the rose and the lily, those gaudy ornaments of Flora.' Beautiful, however, as some of these vegetable productions are, and useful as other kinds prove to mankind, yet the greatest portion of these tribes are noxious if not poisonous, and so little difference, at times, exists between the wholecome and the deleterious species, that it is with great difficulty they are distinguished. In general we ought to reject all those which grow on the skirts of woods, and on decayed trees, those whose smell is displeasing, or taste hot to the palate, all those which when broken give out a milky juice, and generally all that are finely coloured. In many parts abroad, however, some of the noxious kinds are eaten, after being pickled or boiled; it is said that the poisonous quality is soluble, and therefore extracted by the liquid: however this may be, the experiment is too danger ous to be attempted, and the only kinds of fungi found in England decidedly fit for the table, are the common mushroom, and the champignon. The Common Mushroom is found in its carly state as a button. When its cap is in the form of a roundish knob, and in its adult state, when it appears like an inverted saucer, its substance is fleshy, and its gills (the under part) have a pinkish hue, perceptible even when their colour is darkened by age, the smell also is agrecable, THE TOADSTOOL, Agaricus ovatus, The Toadstool, on the contrary, which most nearly resembles it, is more flimsy in its texture, exhales an unpleasant odour, and the gills are of a dark colour, nearly black, without the least blush of pink, and become almost fluid when bruised between the fingers. THE CHAMPIGNON, Agaricus pratensis. The Champignon, the other species of eatable fungus, is not so readily distinguished from many other small sorts; it generally grows in circles, and is of a light brown colour and conical shape, like a cap. Those, however, who are not accustomed to gather mushrooms, should be extremely cautious in selecting any of the smaller kinds for the purpose of food. Some people are in the habit of placing a silver teaspoon in the water in which they boil mushrooms, believing that if they are noxious the silver will be turned black; but although this may take place in the case of the most hurtful, it is not so certain when applied as a test to the less dangerous kinds. The three species of fungi figured in the following page, are decidedly poisonous. SOAP-WORT, (Saponaria officinalis.) | THERE are plants in the world whose juices may be used, like Soap, for the purposes of cleansing. Several sorts of them are found growing in Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Spain, and in the southern part of Italy. The most remarkable of these kinds of plants is the Soapwort. It grows in England and Switzerland in abundance. It rises to the height of three feet, and is about as large as a goose-quill. The leaves are lance-shaped, and are attached to the stalk in pairs opposite to each other. From the little hollow, which is formed by the union of the leaf with the stalk, come out flowers of a lilac colour, grouped together, but growing on separate footstalks. In the Alps, sheep, before shearing, are washed with soapsuds made from this plant, by boiling both the plant and its root for some time in water. If ashes are added, it will clean linen. Even without boiling, if the plant is steeped in water for several days, it imparts its soapy properties. If you take twenty horse-chestnuts, the fruit of Esculus hippocastanum, and rasp them in five or six gallons of water, then add a very little common soap, it is particularly useful in cleaning anything of the hempen kind. The juice of the leaves of the Agave is a well-known substitute for soap in the West Indies. The juice is pressed out by passing the leaves between rollers; it is then exposed to the rays of the sun, in wide shallow vessels, till it becomes thick, and when mixed with leyashes, is made up into balls. It is better than common soap,for it forms suds or lather, when mixed with sea-water. THE HOP. THE Hop is a perennial-rooted plant, with an annual-climbing stem; it belongs to the same order as the common nettle, and is diœcious, the male and female flowers being produced on different plants; the latter are collected in heads, each flower having a large, membranous, floral leaf beneath it, which give the whole an appearance resembling that of a fir-cone. The hop is cultivated in Kent, Hampshire, Essex, and Worcestershire; it is a tender plant, liable to be affected by blight and insects, so that the crop is precarious, notwithstanding the care bestowed on it during every period of its growth: tall stakes are put for it to climb up, and its elegant vine-like foliage wreathing round these supports, have caused a hopground to be called the English vineyard. CASSAVA AND TAPIOCA. TAPIOCA is made from a kind of starch, which comes from the meal of the Cassava roots. Cassava is very plentiful in South America, and in the eastern part of Mexico: the Indians of South America are said to live on it almost entirely. Cassava requires a rich, dry soil, but is easily cultivated. rises to the height of from four to six feet, with a slender, woody, knotted stalk. The roots have a It slight resemblance to parsneps: they are fourteen and fifteen inches long, and in the middle four or five inches thick. After these roots are dug from the ground, the rind is peeled off, and they are washed clean, and then grated or ground. The soft ground pulp falls into a trough. This green juice is poisonous;-if cattle or poultry drink it, they soon swell and dic. Yet only a few hours' exposure to the sun makes all poison evaporate, so that the liquor is not hurtful: the juice and pulp are separated by putting the ground mass into bags, and pressing it. The pulp is i |