While our young friends are enjoying the pleasures of the sea-shore,
there is no more delightful employment than gathering and preserving
the beautiful flowers of the sea.
September is the time to collect the finest varieties of sea-mosses.
Before you commence to arrange them, procure two pieces of deal board,
about twenty inches long and twelve inches wide; some light-brown
paper, and blotting paper, and white drawing paper. You will need
camel’s-hair pencils, long, slender darning-needles (or common needles
mounted on lucifer matches), a small piece of alum, and old cotton or
linen cloth.
The best time for collecting the mosses is in the early morning,
when, on your return, there is leisure for immediately laying them
out. If you leave them until the next day, the chances are that one
half of them will be spoiled. Do not collect many mosses at one time;
for these flowers of the sea fade, and even decompose very fast,
when roughly handled or carelessly gathered. If you cannot arrange
them at once, put them either in an oil-skin bag, or a tin can, with
sea-water. When you are ready to arrange them, take your drawing paper
and cut it into large and small squares, or any size you desire. Get
some soup plates, or any shallow dish; fill with fresh water; place a
small piece of alum in each dish. Now have your camel’s-hair pencils
and darning-needles, or needles mounted on matches, by your side. Then
float a piece of sea-moss in fresh water. If very dirty or sandy, wash
it first in clear water. Float it on a piece of paper, which must be
placed under it with the left hand, while with your right hand you
arrange the plant in a natural manner, using your camel’s-hair pencils
and needles. Superabundant branches can be thinned out with small,
sharp-pointed scissors. When the specimen is placed as you like it,
cautiously raise the paper, that the position of the plant be not
altered, and let it rest somewhere with sloping inclination, that the
moisture may run off, while other specimens are treated in the same
way. Do not leave them long thus, for they must be pressed before the
paper is dry. In drying them, you must lay either old soft linen, or
cotton over them, to prevent its sticking to the upper paper when
pressing; as, in order to press it, you must first lay them in blotting
paper, and then in brown, and place them, thus prepared, between your
boards, and strap the two boards tightly together. The blotting paper
and old cloth must be changed at least twice in drying large sea-weed.
The second day place a heavy pressure on the boards used in pressing.
Sea-mosses are glutinous, and must be dried, and not pressed; and, when
finished and dry, then moisten the under side of the paper, and press
it gently. Others will not adhere to paper, and therefore, when dry,
should be brushed over with a little isinglass, dissolved in gin, laid
on warm; and they will then be fixed closely to the drawing paper.
Another preparation is one ounce of oil of turpentine, in which some
gum mastic, the size of a nutmeg, has been dissolved. This gives a
gloss to the specimen, and helps to preserve the color.
The finest and rarest specimens are found in the lowest tide pool, or
cast up after a storm.
We have seen these sea-mosses, or sea-weeds, exquisitely arranged,
representing flower painting.
Take the pink and green sea-weed, and with practice, moss-rose buds can
be perfectly represented, also other flowers. Be careful and select
fine-grained, at the same time _strong_ paper.
Every lover of nature should always possess a microscope. Examine
with it many tiny specimens, condemned as too small to arrange in
your album; it will reveal to you such form and color, provision and
harmony, as the Almighty Creator conceals from the unseeing eye, and
reveals to patient and intelligent search.
=HOUSE AND HOME ARTS.=