_Cystoceira_. One of the most elegant of this charming genus is the
heath-like species, _Cystoceira ericoides_. On the shores of the south
of England especially, and over a very considerable geographical range,
extending even to the north of Africa, it may be gathered at almost any
period of the summer or autumn. Under the water it glows with prismatic
colours, and as each twig waves to and fro, the hues vary as the light
glances on its fronds; and while some “seem covered with sky-blue
flowers, others remain dark.” In the air it presents only a glossy
yellow, and in the herbarium all its enchanting beauties of colour are
gone, and unless very great pains and skill have been exercised in the
manipulation, it will have shrunk in drying, and turned black.
[Illustration: _Magnified View of Receptacle and Vesicle at Apex of
Branch of Cystoceira ericoides._]
In passing, it will be as well to gather specimens of the rather stiff
and cylindrical _Pycnophycus tuberculatus_, standing alone as it does
_sui generis_.
Of the true fuci, at page 108 is already figured the knotted one, of
which Scotch boys make whistles (_Fucus nodosus_), and that with the
saw-like edges (_Fucus serratus_), p. 109; but the ordinary
bladder-bearing sort, the _Fucus vesiculosus_, and the more translucent
and bladderless or smooth kind, the _Fucus ceranoides_, and indeed the
whole genus, though common in the extreme, have high claims to the
attention of designers, not alone in the elegance of their outlines and
the disposition of their fronds, but as being the very types and models
of sea-weeds.
The _Fucus vesiculosus_ was at one time, particularly in the Orkney
Isles, regularly cropped for the manufacture of kelp, and it is also
known to contain a valuable portion of the sweet principle called
mannite. In the cold and inhospitable regions of the polar lands, where
the thick snow has buried the scanty herbage of the fields, the rocks
furnish in their meadows of fuci abundant fodder for the hungry kine,
which regularly, at the retreat of the tide, come down to graze; and if
these pages were not devoted to other arts than the culinary, one might
not unentertainingly give a disquisition on edible sea-weeds, and on the
various means by which they are made subservient to the luxuries or
necessities of man.
The Icelanders, Greenlanders, the Chinese, and the East Indians have
already made some progress in this department; and nearer home, the
_Chondrus crispus_, “carrageen,” or Irish moss, figured at page 120, has
long ago been placed on the table, in soup, jellies, and blanc-manges.
Or, if the natural history of the class were the object, one might with
equal pleasure dwell on the marvellous exhibition of the strange
animal-like motions of the troops of zoospores which issue from the
thick yellow slime exuded from the ripe receptacles of the _Fucus
serratus_--motions apparently so voluntary that it is difficult to
consider them as concordant with mere vegetation.
[Illustration: _Chondrus crispus._]
I have already hinted at the capabilities of these weeds as suggestive
models for the carver in wood. Now few modern structures are fitted up
with more elegance than our first-class ships, and in them no one will
contend there is not a great and appropriate field for the display of
the ornamental or decorative capabilities of sea-weeds. Here they are at
once appropriate and reminiscent of those shores the voyagers have left
behind--speaking to them, whilst gliding over the sea, of those lands
whence they had departed, and of those other lands which they are
seeking. Around and beneath figure-heads, as scrolls upon the bows or
stern, bordering the panels of the cabin, and modelled to suit the
various machinery on deck, the designer might create a marine
ornamentation as characteristic and as pleasing, and as elaborate, if he
chose, as Corinthian skill developed from the tile-covered plant for the
architecture of the land.
In bronze or in iron, indeed in all dark metal-work, the fuci could not
fail to be elegant objects, and rich in their grouping and in the
effects produced. In many of those objects, too, which the gilder
prepares, the cockle-shells, or cockle-like scrolls and cups so
prominently displayed might be as elegantly and more appropriately
supported by well-devised groups of algæ than by lilies, fleurs-de-lys,
or traceries of meaningless design.
One very pretty diminutive species of _Fucus_ (_F. canaliculatus_) grows
on the very edge of the tide, and often where the waves wet the rocks
only with their spray. The chief crop grows certainly above the level of
half-tide, and these plants show a preference for droughty situations;
not unfrequently in the hot days of the summer we find them quite crisp
and dry, but on the return of the tide they again absorb the aqueous
fluid, and recover life and flexibility. So sea-weeds which have long
been shrivelled up in the house will recover in appearance all their
freshness and verdancy on being merely immersed in a glass of salt or
spring water; and the virtues of the former are now brought from the
sea into our homes in the form of Tidman’s Crystals. I make this
allusion because it is important that the artist, living perhaps in some
inland town or city, should know that the natural models he may bring
from the seaside on his holiday trip may be in reality, though not
apparently, usefully retained for future studies. Many of the more
leathery kinds will submit to several resuscitations of this nature,
although, as might be expected, a deterioration and loss of colour, more
or less, take place in each successive instance. The ordinary method of
preserving sea-weeds for natural-history purposes is, as is familiarly
known, to press them between folds of linen and blotting-paper on to
stout drawing-paper, to which by their glutinous substance they firmly
adhere, forming, under the skilfulness of the manipulator, the most
exquisite natural pictures. In all these, however, the very act of
compression, and the spreading out of the object on a flat surface,
gives an unnatural aspect, very different from their free condition. It
may be well, therefore, to state that in some few experiments I have
made I have found that pure glycerine will preserve even the more pulpy
and plump sorts--if I may use that expressive adjective--without even
the slightest change for at least considerable periods. Some of my
specimens have been kept in glycerine for more than eight months, and
are as fresh in substance and in colour as when they were first
collected. Choice samples seem thus capable of being indefinitely
preserved in proper glass or earthen vessels for use at any time by the
designer.
In a visit to the art-museums at South Kensington I observed two
instances of the introduction of sea-weed: one in Mr. H. Weekes’s noble
statue of a “Young Naturalist,” where, though sparingly made use of,
they can but be regarded as successful innovations; the other in the
collection of imitation Majolica ware, where a large vase has in relief
some fronds of the _Fucus serratus_, which, from their unnaturally
bright green and the want of strict attention to the natural model, are
not so attractive as could have been desired. That sea-weeds, both
painted or impressed upon china and earthenware, are capable of
producing fine results, can scarcely be doubted; and although it cannot
be written of me, as it was of an eminent statesman,--
“China’s the passion of his soul--
A cup, a plate, a dish, a bowl,
Can kindle wishes in his breast,
Inflame with joy, or break his rest,”--
I shall not willingly give up the potter’s art as intractable to my
purpose.
The genus _Desmarestia_, which follows the fuci in natural order, offers
some neat patterns for the painting of pottery and china ware,
especially in the long oval fronds of the _Desmarestia ligulata_, a
microscopic section of which is given at page 103. Its branching fronds,
so leaf-like in their development, and yet so unleaf-like in reality,
tempted me to figure a single branch of one of these plants, as an
example of its peculiar characters, which, in their pale olive-green and
purple hues, could scarcely fail of showing to advantage on the white
translucent ground of aluminous materials. We have plates of a
particularly small size dedicated to the curdled produce of the
dairy--in plain English, we have
[Illustration: _Portion of Desmarestia ligulata._]
cheese-plates, we have soup-tureens and vegetable-dishes, meat-plates
and dessert-plates; and why might we not have articles appropriated to
the service of fish, and decorated with sea-weeds? I have frequently
seen, in drying these objects, their forms impressed through the thick
blotting-paper, and forming very beautiful tracery in low relief on the
opposite side. Such impressions have always suggested the idea of a
similarly simple, chaste, and elegant ornamentation of the plainer and
commoner wares. The impressions left by the _Chondrus crispus_,
_Dictyota dichotoma_, and other flat and interlacing forms, are most
admirable for such a process. Simple accidents may often lead to
unexpected results; and Grecian legends even attribute the discovery of
modelling in relief to the tracing upon the wall, by a potter’s
daughter, of the shadow of her departing lover’s face, which her father
modelled afterwards in clay.
[Illustration: _Root of Laminaria._]
Passing by the genera _Arthrocladia_, _Sporochnus_, and _Carpomitra_,
which all, in a greater or lesser degree, offer pleasing running
patterns for the painting of porcelain or earthenware, and of flat
surfaces in general, we come to the noble family of the _Laminariæ_, so
well and ordinarily known under the names of sea-girdles and tangle. The
size and expanse of the fronds of the various species of _Laminariæ_
exposed, in the bleak and unprotected situations in which they grow, to
the full fury of the waves, are provided for in their leathery
toughness, the rope-like stem, and the numerous attaching discs of their
branching roots. The root of the sea-weed differs very materially from
the root of a plant: through it no nutritious sustenance is conveyed to
the algal; it draws nothing from the soil; it is furnished with no
organs; it is merely an adhesive holdfast, similar in principle to the
sucker by which street-boys lift bricks and stones; it sends down no
ramifying fibres into crevices of the rocks, but merely adheres to the
surface. How far their peculiar characters could be elegantly made use
of for the handles of vases, covers, lids, and other objects and parts
of articles which require to be lifted or raised, must remain to be
developed by the practical designer and manufacturer.
The mussels and shell-fish which attach themselves to the firm rootlets
of the tangle, or which spin together or nestle in the meandering fronds
of the smaller kinds, often produce groupings worthy of much admiration,
and which would form material aids in the elaboration of practical
patterns.
As there is much difficulty in expressing in a greatly reduced drawing a
long and narrow form like that of the common tangle, I have contented
myself with giving a figure of one of the roots, to show how applicable
they are for art-purposes.
The North American and Kamtschatkan species--the _Laminaria
longicrucis_--has a frond as large as a table-cloth, and a stem of
proportionate length. The English species attain very frequently to six
or eight feet, although in their native habitats they may be gathered of
every size, and in every stage of growth; and to reduce such giants to
the scale of a few inches would give no idea of their grandeur or
beauty.
Of those immensely long and slender sea-weeds, placed by algologists in
a distinct genus, with the expressive name of _Chorda_, little use, I
think, can be made in the way of design. The mere collector has to wind
them assiduously into a coil in his herbarium; and in their native
element the only purpose they seem to serve is to stop the passage of
boats, or to drown unfortunate swimmers by entanglement about their
legs; for, although often thirty or forty feet in length even on British
shores, and not thicker at their base than a whipcord, they are
extremely tough and tenacious.
[Illustration: _Dictyota atomaria._]
The case is very different with the beautiful _Dictyotaccæ_, in which
family is included the splendid _Padina pavonia_, with hues nearly as
bright and as rich as the “eye-spots” on the tail of the glorious bird
from which its specific name is taken. Such a marine beauty was not
likely to escape the attention of even early naturalists, and we
accordingly find it mentioned in the writings of Bauchin and others.
Ellis, although he has no business with it, cannot resist the temptation
to figure it in his famous book on Corallines.
In the genus _Cutleria_ we are presented with some attractive novelties,
but the typical genus _Dictyota_ merits special attention.
If the number and variety of names by which an algal was known had any
connection with its charms or its rarity, one
[Illustration: _Stilophora rhizodes._]
[Illustration: _Section of a Sorus of Stilophora rhizodes._]
member at least of the characteristic group, the _Dictyota atomaria_
ought to be--as it really is--both rare and beautiful. The ancient
_nomen triviale_ of _Phasiana_ expresses well, in its allusion to the
plumage of that handsome bird, the barred and zigzag markings caused by
the scattering in the substance of the frond--almost as one would cast
grains of sand or seeds by the hand--of the dark-coloured spores or
germs. The whole plant, too, exhibits those most delicate gradations of
the primitive hue which are not the least remarkable characteristic of
all sea-weeds. And in what are our designers more deficient--especially
those employed in the decoration of our houses--than in simple and
delicate contrasts, or more especially in those almost insensible
gradations of colours which are so admirable in their effect, and which
are so invariably presented to us alike in the sombre olive and in the
bright greens and reds of the sea-weeds? We have no power to express
these natural gradations in our woodcuts, but there is certainly much in
this way worthy of patient study. In this large and extensive family
there are yet more instances of how various sections and magnificent
portions may possess artistic value. The section of a sorus of
_Stilophora rhizodes_ seems, for example, so like the representation of
a fragment of jewellery, that it cannot fail to excite wonder that a
source so prolific should have been neglected by our workers in gold and
silver, and our setters of pearls and precious stones.
The _Mesogloia vermicularis_, one of the gelatinous _Chordariaceæ_, is
an ugly weed, but the filaments of the fronds are worthy,
notwithstanding, of being placed under the power of the microscope and
viewed by an artist.
[Illustration: _Portion of Filaments, Axial and Peripherical, of
Mesogloia vermicularis._]
So, too, with the hollow cottony _Leathesia_, looking like a macerated
walnut tufting the surface of the rock: only peer into it with
microscopic vision, and a forest of crystal fibres, composed of divided
cells, the lower ones long and slender, the upper shorter, and
supporting little hyaline half-moons on their cusps, springs into
existence. The tiny tufts of the _Elachista_ and _Myrionema_ abound in
bead-chain fibres, while the genera _Cladostephus_ and _Sphacelaria_
offer more visible patterns of a kind at once unleaf-like and novel. The
_Sphacelaria plumosa_, so wiry and feathery, resembles those curious
members of the animal kingdom, the _Sertulariæ_, as which it is almost
as rigid and as elegant; while the small tufts of the rare _Sphacelaria
ramosa_ are again charming microscopic objects.
The family _Ectocarpaceæ_ contains a fund of marvellous ideas. One more
genus of British olive weeds alone remains to be mentioned, consisting
of two little parasitic species not uncommon on the fronds of _Chorda
lomentaria_; but though curious and singular in construction, they offer
nothing so tempting as many of those we have been compelled to pass over
in silence.
[Illustration: _Cladostephus verticillatus._
_Portion of a branch._ _One of the ramuli._]
For the purpose of study, the _Melanosperms_ offer a never-failing
supply, always accessible at low water; but should opportunity arise of
acquiring a knowledge of the _Rhodosperms_, with their fairy forms and
brilliant hues, it should not be neglected, for these deep-water algals
seldom reach us but in broken plants washed ashore; and dried specimens,
flattened and faded, cease to be models for study. As to the
_Chlorosperms_, the _Ulvæ_ are full of grace and beauty, and in the
south of England they are served at table as a relish to roast meat,
under the title of laver, and which is now sold in many London shops.
The _Ulva linza_, figured at p. 107, is a good type of the graceful
outline of this elegant family of sea-weeds.
[Illustration: _Portion of Sphacelaria plumosa._]
Oft beneath the warm and brilliant rays of summer’s sun, in shallow
skiff, I have glided on the calm and polished surface of the sea--the
mirror of the glowing sky and heavens beyond--over the dark forests of
tangle waving in the tide, and plucked the pellucid limpets browsing on
their stems; and, peering down into the rugged dells below, have seen
the star-fish crawl with sucker-arms along the rocks, where whelks drill
holes in shells of stone-clad molluscs, to feed upon their soft and
luscious flesh; where sea-anemones, with outspread tentacles, make
gardens of living flowers; and awkward crabs peep out from darksome
nooks at glittering fish, then scramble sidelong back again into their
holes.
In winter, by the raging waves--when skaters swift o’er slippery ice
with rapid pace were gliding; when ears were tingling with the biting
cold, and tender people roasting over blazing fires--I have paced along
the congealed sands to see the shell-fish frozen hard and fast, glued to
the rocks; and sea-weeds, crisp and rigid, recover life and elasticity
in the flowing tide.
In time of spring I have hunted over the slippery meadows of our shores
for the instinct-led travellers from the deep, coming to the shallow
tidal zone to propagate their tribes. And in the golden season I have
watched the sportive play, in rocky pools o’ershadowed by these graceful
weeds, of iridescent annelide and cilia-paddled beroe--have tracked the
skipping shrimps along the silvery sands, or have patiently followed the
_Patella vulgaris_ in its solemn march to graze upon the verdant ulvæ,
and again returning at the change of tide to adjust its conical house
with stately nicety on its proper site.
III.
ON THE CRYSTALS OF SNOW AS APPLIED TO THE PURPOSES OF DESIGN.
BY JAMES GLAISHER, F.R.S.
I.
Snow, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, is suggestive of a soft
flocculent matter of considerable opacity, falling in flakes, and, as
compared with water, of little density--a foot of fresh-fallen snow
producing but from a tenth to a twelfth part of water. Snow, however,
does not always fall in flakes; under certain conditions of atmosphere
and temperature it occasionally falls in groups of slender needle-like
particles or spiculæ, which under the microscope exhibit no structural
detail worthy of remark, but are irregular and jagged in outline. This
is one of the most imperfect forms of snow crystallization, and occurs
generally at a temperature but little above freezing, and at the
commencement of a severe and continued frost, or immediately preceding a
general thaw.
At other times a light feathery snow may be seen to fall, composed
almost entirely of stars of six spiculæ or radii, united in the centre
by a white molecule. These are seldom less than from four to five tenths
of an inch in diameter, and are generally collected in tufts of
half-a-dozen or more together, which in calm weather waft uninjured to
the ground. Sometimes these are mixed with other stars of more intricate
figure, to be spoken of presently. Fig. 1 illustrates this variety, and
is enlarged to double the proportions of the original.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
[Illustration: Fig. 4.]
[Illustration: Fig. 5.]
[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
Sometimes a heavy fall of ordinary snow may be accompanied by a number
of minute specks, glistening among the flakes like fragments of talc or
mica, as seen sparkling in a mass of granite. On careful investigation
these prove to be thin laminated hexagons of the most perfect delicacy
and symmetry of form, as shown in Fig. 2.
The hexagon and star being the base of all the crystals of snow yet
observed, we will proceed to show how the more elaborate figures are
compounded of these two primary elements.
To explain various peculiarities of structure which occur in several of
the larger drawings, we will refer to the process of crystallization as
carried on at low temperatures on the surface of still or gently-moving
water.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.]
[Illustration: Fig. 9.]
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
[Illustration: Fig. 12.]
Water freezes at an angle of 60°. On its first congelation, under
favourable circumstances for observation, we perceive in parts,
generally about the centre and around the margin, a corrugation of its
surface. This corrugation presently discovers a series of distinct
figures, needle-like in form, and analogous to the spiculæ of snow. As
the process continues, to each of these needles, while yet forming, a
serrated incrustation of leafy or arborescent character is attaching
itself, so that in time the greater number of them become each the
centre of a crystalline pinna, not unlike a frond of the lady fern.
Fig. 25 (page 140) is a sketch of one, the size of the original, as
observed by T. G. Rylands, Esq., of Warrington, and sent to us during
the severe winter of 1855. The overlapping observable on one side of the
pinna is a peculiarity generally to be found in three out of the six
leaves forming the entire crystal.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.]
[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
[Illustration: Fig. 17.]
[Illustration: Fig. 18.]
Fig. 26 (page 141) represents the crystal when complete; the drawing was
made by ourselves, and gives with great exactitude the figure of the
needles, which, it will be observed, diverge from the main stem
uniformly at an angle of 60°. The position maintained by them around the
centre of the crystal is beautifully adaptive, and well worth
examination.
It is not always that the primitive spiculæ are divergent in groups of
six. At times they arrange themselves irregularly in clusters, and
crystallization proceeds with results of a character
[Illustration: Fig. 19.]
[Illustration: Fig. 20.]
[Illustration: Fig. 21.]
[Illustration: Fig. 22.]
[Illustration: Fig. 23.]
[Illustration: Fig. 24.]