[1]This name _Kelp_ is applied to species of marine plants of the genus
_Macrocystis_ which grow profusely in the sea on the Pacific coast
of the American continent. The species particularly alluded to as
abounding on the coast of California is one of the most gigantic of
plants, having been observed upwards of three hundred feet in
length, and occurs in such immense and dense masses as to present
formidable difficulties to the navigator. For this reason many
localities of this extraordinary plant have been carefully marked in
the charts containing the results of the Coast Survey now being made
by order of the Government of the United States. All the recent
travellers in California represent it as being cast on the shore in
large quantities by the action of the sea, and it could probably be
as readily applied to the production of Barilla (carbonate of soda)
as any other marine species of the vegetable kingdom from which, in
other countries, this important article of commerce is manufactured.
[2]Nearly the whole of the Zoological portion of this important work is
omitted in the English edition (Quarto, London, 1843.)
[3]Dec. 1853.
[4]The works of this naturalist (who is Director of the Zoological
Museum in Dresden) are in the highest degree important, and in fact
indispensable to the ornithologist. In his great work, “The Complete
Natural History” (Die Volstandigate Naturgeschichte, Dresden and
Leipsic, now in the course of publication in parts), he has
undertaken to give plates of all known species of birds, and has
already published several thousand figures.