Part 7

There is a point whence life and vegetation seem to diverge--the simple cell; where the algæ meet the monads, and most mysterious processes and elaborations are carried on by means the simplest but most astounding. Of cell upon cell are the sea-weeds built, and by cells or spores cast loose from their substance are their species reproduced, as certainly and as surely as plants by the marriage of the flowers. Of cellular tissue entirely does the sea-weed consist; of cell upon cell alone is woven all the varied drapery of the deep. A mere sac, empty, or containing a fluid or granular substance, absorbs the surrounding fluids, assimilates them in its membranous walls, consolidates their carbon and nutritious substances, grows, divides, each portion swells again to its parent size, each again divides, and so the splitting cells increase and multiply. The rapidity with which some of the common confervæ of our ponds are thus developed is well known; and it is not unusual to find loathsome pools, that were black at dawn with decomposing filth, covered at eve with a floating verdure rapidly and energetically extracting its nutriment out of the pollution, and liberating the gas of animal life--oxygen--into the atmosphere, in lieu of pestilential effluvia. The snow-plant, the _Protococcus nivalis_, is perhaps the best-known instance of the rapid development of cell-plants properly so called. In a few hours whole tracts of the white snow of northern lands will assume the hue of the battle-field; and from another species the waters of the Arabian Gulf have acquired their memorable name of Red Sea.

Above the limits of the lichen incrusting the peaks of mountains, and in the unplumbed abysses of the deep below the region of the nullipore, there the cell-plants swarm by myriads; and even the air powders the ropes of ships at sea with the atomic dust that had vegetated among the clouds.

I have claimed for the sea-weeds the attractions of simplicity, and I claim beauty of outlines and gracefulness of forms even for the simplest of the simple--the cell-plants. Forms! outlines of cell-plants! Would not a single species content the naturalist? The ever-varying Hand that is traced in all around has touched these lowly objects with charms and wonders in the most exquisite modifications of form and the most delicate sculpture. The invisible is not the less beautiful that it is unseen; the physician owes much to these little things--why not the artist? Are there no laws of symmetry in natural objects, as there are of mechanics and of force? no sympathetic principles of harmony of colour with form, as of structure with locomotion or fixity? Even in these humble plants there are traces of that divine delicacy which may be observed and appreciated--an expression of that one word which cannot be spoken.

For the present attention is confined to those forms of algæ which exhibit the second stage in the development of vegetation--the linking of these cells, or cell-plants, together, which is naturally effected by their self-division and growth, without actual separation of the parts. And here the transitions exhibit those almost insensible gradations which have led some powerful minds to view the highest structures, and even intellectual man, as the consummation only of previous states and changes. But whatever ideas may be entertained of the manner by which the creative energy has worked, the results and the power, the ends and the means, are alike astounding, whether the monad or the cell were elaborated into the animal or the plant, or both were produced by a thought to fulfil their purposes in the economy of life. The globular membranous sacs or cells divide in a linear direction, and a string of the tiniest beads results. In the cylindrical cell--for the forms of the cells are in themselves various, both naturally as well as by the exercise of mutual pressure and other influences--a transverse partition is formed; the two ends are produced; in each of these again the same process is repeated, and a thread-like species is formed. Other globules adhere side by side, developing the membranous expansions of cellular tissue, in which we recognise the first appearance of the leaf. In the clinging together of the cylindrical fibres we perceive likewise the first rudiments of the branch and stem: in such cases, when the elongated cells of the fibres are of an unequal length, a continuous stem or cord is produced, varied only as it is enlarged or swollen by the methodical aggregation of greater numbers, or tapering by the prolongation of the central threads beyond the rest, or by the less robust condition of the young cells.

If the cell-cylinders are of _equal_ length, nodes and internodes, like the joints of a reed, are produced; and by the bifurcation of the cells of the extremities branching fronds and ramuli result. Thus by this cell-splitting are formed the delicate branching forms of the rhodosperms (red sea-weeds), the paper-like membranous expansions of the ulvaceæ, the jagged fronds of the fuci, and the stout trunk of the gigantic lessonia. Thus the progress of the general plan, from the conception within the ovule, is traced, species by species, and genus by genus, until we pass ashore with the zostera and a few other similar borderers, and ascend through the mosses, ferns, and grasses, to the flowering plants and trees, and reach the summit of the second organic kingdom, where mind alone seems wanting to complete the conditions of life. Indeed, were it not for the perfection of all things around us, we might regard the formation of beautiful flowers and massive trees as arising from an imperfection--namely, the incomplete separation of the primitive cells in their self-division--and that Nature had turned the hint to most admirable and wonderful account, that she had improved upon it, and not only joined firmly together the sides of the connected cells, but in many of the thread-like species had enclosed them, for their better protection from disjunction, in gelatinous or mucous cylindrical sheaths, which may be fancifully, if not really, regarded as the first symptoms of the cuticle or bark. Most of the filiform algals are fresh water, but many of them are marine; and among the tufts of confervæ in brackish pools, or the floating scum on the surface of polluted water, along the muddy sides of ditches, as well as coating damp rocks and spray-splashed cliffs, upon decaying heaps of sea-wrack, on floating planks drifting ashore

in fleecy masses, or bearding with silky hairs the fronds of the sea-weeds themselves, we shall find abundant illustrations of such primitive types for our present purpose--that of slightly tracing some of the variations and adaptations of particular parts and organs by which Nature effects the beautification of the objects themselves. Nor as we regard these objects under the microscope--for it will require the high powers of that instrument to develop their minute structure--can we avoid being struck with the elegance of the twistings and contortions, the lacings and interlacings, of even the most simple threads, as they congregate and combine to form those dense masses, velvety tufts, or hazy films by which their myriads are made evident to the human eye. The development of certain cells into spores, and the wonderful generative processes by which the algæ are propagated, belong, however interesting, more to the domains of natural history than to our present inquiry. Suffice it to say that, by the impregnation of the endochrome of one cell by that of another, the spores--or seeds, as for expressiveness they may here be termed--are produced by the granulation of the mixed matter. Now, in the different aspects and conditions of these spore-cells arises that first divergence from the mere thread of beads by which Nature, while she retains the principle and object of the organ itself in its adaptation to special conditions, seems to vary in every possible manner and way, not only in form and sculpture, but often in colour, her most primitive organizations. Even the contraction of the endochrome itself, in the granulating process, by the production of intermittent vacant spaces, adds a pleasing variation to many of these moniliform filaments.

In some species of this class the continuity of the congregated cells is interrupted, besides by the spore cells, by a connecting cell, or heterocyst, differing in form from either, and not unusually of an entirely opposite and contrasting colour. Such is the case with the _Spermosira Harveyana_, a very minute species of nostoc, found on dead leaves in the summer month of June. The rudimentary cells of its exquisite curved filaments are small cylinders, the spore capsules completely spherical, and the heterocysts subquadrate, inclining to oval. The colours vary in each, and are in the first of a translucent bluish green,--of course, therefore, the prevailing hue,--which is charmingly relieved by the deep brown of the second and the pale pink of the last.

These constitutional forms, in their varieties and adaptations, their manner of growth and development, constitute the entire structure of the whole tribe of sea-weeds; and therefore we ought to find the chief features of any elegance these humble forms possess continued and elaborated, as they really are, in the more complex conditions of the higher fuci. In the sections of the sea-weeds, therefore, even as made for the scientific elucidation of their structure, we may expect to find, as we undoubtedly shall do, many hints and lessons.

The true form of the cell is perhaps the globe, but it is more commonly presented to us as the cylinder, the conditions and outlines of which are varied almost _ad infinitum_, as by the various effects of growth and pressure the cells are forced into hexagons, pentagons, and other mathematical shapes, or their lines of junction are disposed in undulating tracery of the most elegant and intricate patterns.

Of the few sections we have engraved as illustrations, the first is that of a pretty knotted sea-weed, rather rare, but still not uncommon on the southern coasts of our island in the summer and autumn seasons--the _Arthrocladia villosa_. Around the tubular axis the larger rings are disposed,--to which circle upon circle of the smaller succeed to the verge of the periphery, yielding to the forms of the intermediate cavities in numerous appropriate shapes. In the second we have given a cross section of the compressed frond of the _Desmarestia ligulata_, an inhabitant of the tidal pools at extreme low water on most parts of our coasts. An internal jointed tube passes up the centre of the frond, and gives rise to the obscure midrib perceptible on the surfaces of the sides; on either side the larger cells are disposed in two opposing flat arcs, and compressed into shapes more or less hexagonal, outside of which, in the second row, the pentagonal form prevails, and then the intermediate exterior and interior spaces are filled by smaller cellules of more irregular outlines.

The third section is made across one of the spore-bearing receptacles which tip--as yellow warty excrescences--the flat olive fronds of the common bladder-weed, _Fucus vesiculosus_, so common in dense meadows everywhere on our shores. The interior, filled with mucus, is traversed by a network of jointed fibres, which communicate with the spherical conceptacles immersed in the outer substance, and containing the spores and the antheridia. That there are other and many sections far more intricate and beautiful any one can testify who has ever turned over the fine plates of Professor Harvey’s “Phycologia Britannica,” his admirable papers in the publications of the Smithsonian Society, or the noble folio volume of Postel and Ruprecht; but in these simple ones here given--and selected on that very account--we find Nature contriving elegant and pleasing devices by the mere repetition and combination of the circle, the hexagon, or the pentagon, and producing by such means a pleasing unity and richness of effect instead of a sameness or a poverty. At any rate, whenever Nature does produce a beautiful object, we shall never be the worse for examining the principles by which she has worked, and it is in the least complicated that we must first hope to find the rudimentary laws of her beauty-building. With rule and compass we can excel her in accuracy--with reason, experience, and remembrance, we can improve upon her labours in our artificial productions; but, notwithstanding the many exquisite objects of art produced by our modern jewellers, there is by far too much conventionality and routine in the more ordinary bijouterie of every-day wear; and we might from such sections alone acquire many novelties in the setting of gems, pearls, and pebbles, as well as gain many advantages over the arbitrary whims of an unguided, although it may be a cultivated, mind. Not only might the real be thus improved by adopting the mathematical solids or traceries thus suggested, but there are numerous articles of mock jewellery in which shells, fictitious agates, and inferior cameos are largely used, the designers for which might be advantageously employed for a season by the seaside, where their eyes would become accustomed to the sober olive of the weeds; and it might then be found that a bronze setting would not only be more truthful, but more useful and chaste, than a hypocritical gilt surface, that reveals at every touch the baser metal beneath. And here, with these few words of explanation and suggestion, for the present let me leave this unworked vein--merely adding that the longitudinal sections are as fanciful as the transverse, and in viewing the latter we may oftentimes imagine we are examining fairy ribands and laces of the most delicate texture.

But however complicated the combinations of the cellular and vascular tissues become as we ascend in the scale of creation, the development of forms and tints in every natural object is as dependent upon fixed laws as the beauty and colouring of a picture on the skill and innate genius of the artist. Few artists, however, if any, work by rule; in their studies they attain instinctively, as it were, a conceptive knowledge of the beautiful; they find Nature ever varying, and they find variety the source of beauty; they find that an object composed of lines contrasts pleasantly with circles; that the upraised hands of a speaker should be opposed by the folded arms of the listeners--the energetic by the prostrate; and so they go on, acquiring a science by perception, of which the more ethereal portion has never yet been reduced to written rules, and is so subtle that perhaps it never will be. That designers work more usually by their innate taste and their manual skill is evinced by the many elegant absurdities that one constantly meets.

And now I would arrest the first objection that could be raised against the sea-weeds as objects of design--their inapplicability on the ground of appropriateness. There is an appropriateness, the world will say, about flowers; they have a language of their own, in which they speak the rarest poetry; the saints of all the days of the year have their dedications of these gems of the fields; the nymphs of the forest and dell, the Naiades and mythological celestials without end have patronised them; besides, it is so natural to paper our walls with roses, to have garlands woven in our dresses; and our maidens only deck their hair with the artificial because the real will fade. What more proper than a plate of leaves for fruit, or a decanter ornamented with grapes? True; but what more absurd than a vase of cabbage-leaves supported on the flourishing tails of twisted dolphins; or a jug composed of a gigantic head, from which we pour the contents through the perforated body of a swan, with its neck immersed in a sturdy flag, and of such reversed proportions and of such diminutive size that a whole flock might roost in the interior of an egg, without any of them experiencing that unpleasant inconvenience which nursery rhymes attribute to the old lady who lived in the shoe? These are broad absurdities, although the objects themselves may be elegant and of costly ware: thus showing at once that the grace of natural objects is dependent upon the laws of mathematical form, for there is nothing in the subjects we have noticed to interest--no hidden allusion--and all that is pleasing arises from the lines of contour. But there are more subtle misapplications, which ordinarily escape detection. Is it quite correct to bind the tendrils of the vine round the unpretending jugs which are dedicated to the pure fluid of the teetotaler, or those that are charged with foaming ale? to defend our butter with a belt of hissing snakes, or pass jets of sweet water through fountains of gigantic cockle-shells and marine monsters? And yet many of these things we constantly forgive; then surely we might extend some of that mercy, if they required it, to the sea-weeds, which we do not withhold from reptiles, especially if it can be shown that they are available for more artistic purposes than for pretty picture-making in albums and herbaria, or for fancy baskets, with a hackneyed apologetic legend, in bazaars.

It cannot be expected that the designer should carry on the laborious researches of the man of science, or make the delicate sections which the naturalist finds necessary for the determination of species and the comprehension of the phenomena of structure and vitality; that he should have one eye for the microscope, and the other for his pencil; nor that the philosopher should have all the accomplishments of the artist; but as the boundless universe is dependent upon everything that exists for its unity and harmony, so art cannot neglect even natural sciences with impunity, for, at least, every branch is capable of adding an expression or a charm. Pardon, therefore, the simple belief that even the rudiments of vegetable structure and the section of a sea-weed or a plant are not unworthy of inspection for artistic purposes, and that they may _suggest_, if not actually exhibit, exquisite combinations of mathematical figures which are not inappropriate decorative ornaments for most varied purposes.

Along high-water mark, as high as the spray bedews the rugged beds of stone, grow the green confervæ; within the tidal zone is the territory of the olive fuci; and the deep is the home of the red weeds, sometimes to be found at dead low water, and even higher on the shore, in like manner as algæ of vivid green are traced to depths of thirty, forty, and even fifty fathoms; for although the rules hold generally good, there are exceptions--as it is said there must be to all rules, to prevent their becoming axioms. Such, too, of olive, red, and green, is the artificial arrangement by which botanists have classified the algæ, the colours and characters being sufficiently associated and distinctive for even scientific grouping.

Having glanced already at the species of lowest organization, let us take one other instance of the applicability of sea-weeds as objects of design. A dozen collected at random, in one’s walk from the edge of the beach to the rim of the tide, would more than suffice for many different applications and manufactures; and the very commonest are equally valuable, and often better than the rarest. Take, then, the first handful you can collect. Among the gatherings of such a parcel are sure to be found some very applicable forms, such as the _Ulva linza_, represented at page 107; the _Fucus nodosus_, page 108; the _Fucus vesiculosus_, page 103; the _Fucus serratus_, here given; _Halidrys siliquosa_, page 110; _Dictyota dichotoma_; _Laminaria Phyllitis_; _L. digitata_; _L. saccharina_, &c.