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largeness of the seas which they inhabit: thus, in the Mediterranean, the smaller kinds are found; in the Atlantic Ocean, larger; in the Arctic Ocean the long-leaved laminaries; and in the Antarctic, the vastest body of water in the world, are seaweeds which have been compared to marine trees, such as the gigantic Durvillea.

ternate life. If we rise in the series to the the intimate relation which exists bemost common and abundant of sea-weeds, tween the dimension of the sea-weed and the the fucus, we find its fronds flat, forked, and swelled here and there by oval vesicles filled with air, to support it on the surface of the water. Besides these, tuberculous excrescences terminate the forks; which, when examined, are like carefully lined nests- one containing bags of corpuscles; the other, spores of much larger dimensions. If these are detached, and Among the most remarkable homes of laid together in sea-water, an amusing the marine flora, sailors have noticed some, scene commences: during a few moments, the importance of which is out of all prothe antherozoids, as the former are called, portion with what is seen in other seas. move about in extreme confusion, swim- These banks of fucæ spread over the surming without aim, and intermixing the face of the water like meadows, on the filaments which are at each end of their green-sward of which the foot might seem orange-spotted body. Then, meeting a safely to tread, so thick and solidly bound spore, they seize upon it, cover it with together are they. Every sailor knows numbers, and by means of their vibratory the one which is situated between the hairy tuft, communicate to it a rotary Azores, the Canary Islands, and the Cape motion, the rapidity of which is most de Verd. Had Columbus listened to the astonishing, when the enormous dispropor- murmurs of his crews, when sailing in this tion of size between the two is taken into strange sea, which hindered his advance, consideration. The spores must waltz he would have turned back to Spain, and on, and their large yellow balls are bris- the New World would not then have been tling with the strange little corpuscles, discovered, so alarmed were they at so which, almost lost on their surface, can strange a phenomenon. Another mass only be seen by the agitation of their trem- nearly as considerable — that is, about six bling and silky filaments. times the size of France-extends itself in the Pacific Ocean not far from the Californian coast. The sea-weeds come from all parts; torn from the shores of many lands, and carried by marine currents or the action of the waves, they form enormous vegetable banks, which float on the surface of the waters, carrying from one hemisphere to the other myriads of every kind of insects; and when settled down in calm waters, become centres of life and reproduction unsurpassed by the immense forests of the tropics. Nor is it only on the surface of the waters that sea-weeds are found in every latitude; the submarine flora has many representatives of this rich family, which, from the little ectocarpus, which carpets the ground, to the gigantic fucus, many hundreds of yards in length, live in marshes, lakes, rivers, and oceans. There is scarcely any shore where these are not to be found; but it is more particularly on the coasts of the Pacific Ocean that the diver can contemplate this undergrowth in all its magnificenceequalling in richness the landscapes of the tropical zones. Their forms, colours, and undulations are without parallel. Myriads of the little confervæ are pressed together in immense prairies, like a velvet-pile car pet; shaded with every imaginable green, set off here and there by the ample leaves of the sea-lettuce, or dyed with the scarlet

The difficulty of classifying these elementary families has already been mentioned, but naturalists have divided them into two classes, according to the place where they vegetate: that is to say, sweet-water seaweeds, such as the ulve and confervæ; and marine sea-weeds as, for instance, the fucus. Another commoner arrangement divides them into five tribes, according to their form and appearance. The nature of the soil which they require is a matter of indifference to them; their only element is water; the place to which they attach themselves is simply used as a support, and from the marsh where they stagnate, to the oceans where their gigantic fronds cover the surface, they form the most independent of the vegetable kingdoms; swimming, floating, or carrying away with them their elements of life and reproduction, when torn from the place of their birth. This ceases to be the case when the degree of depth which each species requires is considered. Each seems to belong to a certain zone, beyond which it cannot vegetate. This will easily be understood when we think of the different currents, the degrees of depth and density, the relative quantities of light and heat, perhaps also the saltness of the water, but above all, the climate which the different oceans occupy. A curious fact is found in'

light thrown by the floating iridiæ. Then come the great thalassiophytes, with their fans of red, green, or yellow leaves; above are the supple ribbons of the laminariæ, and the tall stem of another, which is garnished by a collar of fringe, and ends in one immense leaf fifteen yards in length. Last of all, rises, from the midst of smaller growth, like the palm-tree in the forest, the superb nereocyst us, whose immense stem swells gradually into a club, and is crowned by a tuft of ribbon leaves, exciting admiration by their soft and graceful undulations.

From The Spectator.

AN OPEN POLAR OCEAN. DR. PETERMANN, the eminent German geographer, has just announeed a very interesting discovery. It will be in the knowledge of most of our readers that during the last two or three years, German, Swedish, and American explorers have been engaged in a series of attempts to reach the North Pole of the earth; or rather, it were perhaps more just to say that they have sought a less barren success, and that the ostensible purpose of their journeys has been to determine the It is not difficult to imagine the effect true nature of those almost unknown rewhich the least agitation of the waves gions which lie north of the 80th parallel must produce on these long and supple of latitude. Apart altogether from the plants, but almost impossible to describe interest attaching to the question whether the fugitive tints which adorn this moving the Pole of the earth can be reached, there picture, when the rays of the sun, breaking through the waves, vivify the different colours which mingle and harmonize in the deep waters. Then all the living creatures must be depicted which animate these submarine landscapes: a thousand crabs travelling amidst the green ulva; shoals of sea-dogs, or columns of silver herring, gliding through the madrepores; the brilliant sea-anemone flourishing on the reefs; or the blue bell of some medusa drawing its tentacles among the long ribbons of the laminariæ.

In the economy of nature, sea-weeds play no unimportant part. If we look back to that distant period of the world's history when the scarcely cold crust of the earth was covered by water, we find the remains of the primordial protococcus in the lukewarm waters, the simple globules of which were preparing to cover the whole of the world. As the higher summits emerged into the light of day, they were covered with the first layer of earth, or mud, arising from decomposed seaweeds. To the present time, they continue to lay the foundation, at the bottom of oceans, lakes, and rivers, of that fruitful detritus which successive generations of vegetable matter utilize so successfully. Independently of this, they have also an immediate and practical use; no poisonous sea-weeds are known; there are many kinds which furnish abundant alimentary resources, and others which are used on a vast scale in manufactures.

THE Island of Gorgona, off the coast of Choco, is much complained of by ship captains for its electric storms, and its irregular currents. It has held this reputation since the time of Pi

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is much to encourage Arctic research. The flora and fauna of Arctic regions are well worthy of study; and even more interesting are the glacial phenomena presented amid that dismal domain. The student of the earth's magnetism cannot but look with interest to those regions towards which the magnetic needle seems to direct him. Within the Arctic regions also lie the poles of cold; there the winds complete their circuit; and there, if a modern theory be correct, lies the mainspring of the whole system of oceanic circulation. But lastly, material interests are involved in Arctic voyaging, since the whale fishery forms no unimportant branch of industry, and its success depends in large measure on the discovery of all the regions where the whales do chiefly congregate.

The discovery just announced by Dr. Petermann bears as closely on this question of the whale fishery as upon those problems respecting the Polar regions which had perplexed men of science.

Among the expeditions which had sailed during the spring of the present year, there was one, under the command of the German Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht, which had sought the almost unvisited seas lying between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. In a Norwegian sloop they penetrated into these seas; and now we have news of their complete success in attaining a very high northerly latitude,the highest, we believe, ever attained in that direction. In latitude 78° north they found open water, extending in longitude from 42° to 60° (east), and abounding in whales; and they believe that under favourable conditions this sea would afford an open way to the pole.

It is to be remarked in passing that one of our scientific contemporaries has been

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somewhat hasty, as we judge, in regarding | phus; as fast as they journeyed norththis result interesting as it undoubtedly ward the winds carried southward the as "the discovery of the open Arctic whole of the ice-field on which they were sea which has been so long searched for." voyaging. The ice-field was not fixed, as The question whether there is an open sea they had supposed, but, vast as was its exextending to the pole of the earth itself is tent and thickness, it was floating on the as far from solution as it ever was. It has Arctic seas. No surer evidence could long since been known that open water have been given of the existence of open lies beyond the ice-bound seas which sur- Arctic water farther north. When Parry round the northern shores of Siberia. It led his men homewards there must have is to this open water, not actually seen, been open water all along the northern but as actually discovered as though it had edge of the great ice-field, and extending been seen, by Wrangel and his fellow- to a distance of at least two hundred miles voyagers, that the name Polynia was first towards the pole. Such an extent of assigned. It has also been shown that water, at the very least, must have been there is open water to the north of por- left open by the mere southerly drift of tions of the American continent; while the great ice-field. within the angle between north Green- But the discovery just announced, land, and the prolongation of the western although it affords no new evidence of shore of Kennedy's Channel, open water importance respecting the open Polar sea, rolling with the swell of a boundless is yet of great interest, in showing how ocean," has been seen to extend "as far as the eye could reach " towards the north. It is also well known that close by the very region where Payer and Weyprecht found open water, our countryman Henry Hudson, sailing in one of the clumsy tubs called ships in the days of Queen Elizabeth, reached a far higher northerly latitude than the German voyagers. He did not, however, pursue the same course, since whereas they have penetrated between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, he sailed round the north-western shores of the former island. Sir Ed. Parry, in 1827, reached yet farther north, and although his Voyage on a due northerly course from Spitzbergen was not a sea journey, but prosecuted by means of boats and sledges over the ice-covered seas, yet the manner in which his progress towards the pole was finally stopped shows clearly that the seas on which the ice-fields lay were both wide and deep. His party were already well advanced on their course over what they supposed to be a solid ice-field, extending perhaps to within but a short distance of the pole; or even beyond it. They were harassed by the difficulties and dangers which they had to encounter, and several of their number were rendered half blind by the glare of the snow-fields; but they still plodded steadily onwards, upheld by the hope of achieving that enterprise which so many had attempted in vain. At length, constant winds from the north began to try their spirit. It seemed as though the guardian genius of the Arctic regions had commissioned these winds to oppose the efforts of the intruders. The men pushed on, despite the winds, but their efforts were as the labours of Sisy

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the open water surrounding northern Spitzbergen may be reached along a new course. The voyage past the north-westerly shore of Spitzbergen is full of dangers. It has been attempted again and again without success, while too often the result of such attempts has been not merely failure, but disaster. The route followed by Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht had been thought far less promising. It lies nearer to the Siberian pole of cold, and the seas, being narrower, seemed more likely to remain ice-bound, even at midsummer. Now that it has been successfully traversed, other voyagers will probably attempt it. The fact that the open sea between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla abounds with whales will no doubt induce many hardy whalers to explore the route, and possibly to voyage far to the north on the open sea in their search for these creatures. Certainly, if Arctic travellers can succeed in reaching this open water earlier in the year than those who have discovered it, they will not return without being able to tell us whether the sea really does extend far towards the north pole. It requires only a glance at a good map of the Arctic seas (not the monstrosities on Mercator's Projection), to see that in all probability the open water discovered by Lieutenants Payer and Weyprecht communicates freely not only with the seas on which Hndson sailed, but also with the open water reached by Drs. Kane and Hayes through Kennedy's Channel. Should this be so, we may not only hope to hear before long that the North Pole has been reached, but also that something has been learned respecting the deep seas to the north of Spitzbergen, and respecting the

termed "the Queen's Household." Not a little of philological interest attaches also still, in some cases, to its nomenclature,— as, for instance, in the use of the word "yeoman,” to designate an officer between the "serjeant and the assistant" (formerly "groom"), in which case it seems clearly, as in many guild-charters and statutes, to mean simply "young man."

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Still more precious to the philologist is the term "ewry," as surviving only here, and as representing, with its still current brother-word "ewer," an extinct Norman family of words which have no remaining near kinship in French beyond the familier eau ("ewe" in our early statutes), the only modern French word for water-vessel being a South-French form, much more nearly related to aqua,— aiguière.

hitherto unvisited northern shores of the island (we suppose) of Greenland. It is even possible that a voyage along the Course now discovered may supply the best means of ascertaining the configuration of the northern shores of that strange archipelago lying to the north of the American continent. Indeed it is difficult to say how otherwise those shores can ever be reached. All the attempts hitherto made by the seekers after a NorthWestern passage have failed in enabling the voyagers to find a course outside the North-American Arctic archipelago; and, as our readers are doubtless aware, the problem of the North-Western Passage was at length solved, not by sailing round this archipelago, but by penetrating through it to a spot subsequently reached by voyagers who had passed through Beh- We do not go so far as to say that archring's Straits. It would be strange, in- æology and philology demand that the deed, but not altogether unexpected, if Queen's Household should be kept upon voyagers from the seas lying to the north its present footing. We could see withof Spitzbergen should be able to reach out a pang the disappearance of the " HeBehring's Straits by an open-sea course. reditary Grand Falconer," whatever saWe say "not wholly unexpected" because vour of the ages of romance may cling to the late Captain Lambert proposed to the title, and although, sooth to say, Hurreach the North Pole- or to attempt to lingham pigeon-shooting may appear to us reach it from the side of Behring's an utterly base and snobbish substitute Straits; and since others have believed that the pole could be reached from the direction of Spitzbergen, we might infer, by combining the two theories, that an open-sea communication exists between Spitzbergen and Behring's Straits. Should assuming the pageantry of a Court to this prove to be the case, the discovery be still kept up -a judicious weeding out would certainly not be the least interest- of superfluous offices from the Household ing result of the successful voyage of Lieu- would be practicable, and would probably tenants Payer and Weypecht. Of course, bring relief in many ways to the Sovereign the voyage between Spitzenbergen and herself. But there is one element of sinBehring's Straits would be far too danger-gular unfairness in Sir Charles Dilke's ous for any save exploring expeditions; but it is a fact worthy of mention, that should such a voyage be possible, the journey from England to the Chinese seas by Spitzbergen and Behring's Straits would be far shorter, so far as mere distance is concerned, not only than the course thither round the Cape of Good Hope, but even than the famous North-Westerly passage, the search for which has cost so many valuable lives.

From The Spectator. THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD, -1738 AND 1871. THERE is probably no element in the national life of England involving so much of middle-age and even Byzantine arehæology as the constitution of what is

for the falconer's craft, and, pace Sir Charles Dilke, much less worth the continuance of the Duke of St. Alban's £1,500 a year than his present sinecure. We are strongly inclined to believe that

mode of dealing with the subject. To judge from his speech, one would think that the Household had been hitherto treated as a sacrosanct ark, on which no hand had ever been laid. It is easy to show that this is by no means the case, and that the Sovereign's Household in 1871, however superfluously ample it may yet appear to many, is yet of far scantier dimensions than it was, say, a century and a half ago.

Take, for instance, the eighth edition, printed 1738, of that curious book, the Gazetteer and Imperial Calendar, in one of our forefathers', (Chamberlayne's) "Present State of Great Britain and Ireland." We find here the three great divisions or departments of the Household, the same as now,— those of the Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Master of the Horse. But if we compare their composition with that

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given by the "Imperial Calendar" for 1871, "yeoman," the "Master of the Tenniswe shall find great changes. The total of court; the "Keeper of the Lions, Lion154 persons holding office now in the Lord esses, and Leopards at the Tower;" and Steward's department is no doubt consid- finally, in sharp contrast to the last named, erable. But in 1738 the number seems to an idyllic personage whose title is redolent have been 198, or between one-third and of bygone days, the "Strewer of Herbs," one-fourth more. The five "table-deck- with her salary of £24 per annum. One ers," whom Sir Charles Dilke falls foul of, branch of the department. however, has were then seven. Whole departments, increased by nearly a third,― the Medical many officers – - some of each with names branch, over which Sir Charles Dilke made to make a philologer's mouth water- have merry. Fifteen persons in all can be vanished altogether, the Buttery," viewed as connected with it in 1738, as with its "gentleman," yeoman," and against the 21 of 1871, including a humble three 66 grooms;" the Spicery," with " operator for the teeth," who now figures its clerk; the "Acatery," with its “ ser- full-blown as " Surgeon-Dentist." What, jeant," "sole clerk," and " yeoman of however, Sir Charles Dilke did not say, salt stores;" the "Poultery," the "Scald- and what ought to be borne in mind, is ing-House," the "Wood Yard." The that these appointments are to a great ex"King's Privy Kitchen" and the "House- tent viewed as simple acts of recognition hold Kitchen" are no longer distinct. Five by the head of the State of professional "turn-broachers" have disappeared from eminence, so that it is very nearly absurd the two; the "salsary man and the "fur- to fall foul of the twenty-one physicians, ner are gone from the "Pastry; car- surgeons, &c., to the Queen, as it would be takers" and "tail-car-takers" are no more, to number the barristers who are “of and with the "bread-bearer" the "cock and counsel to Her Majesty," and to ask crier" has made his exit. The amount of whether the Queen requires the services retrenchment would appear greater still of so many silk gowns. And the same apwere it not that some new officers have plies to the very meagre recognition by been introduced, such as the " steam-appa- the Crown of Art and Literature. Sir ratus man" undreamt of in 1738, or the Charles Dilke, it may be observed, does three gardeners of the Royal gardens of not seem to have ventured to make a butt Windsor, Hampton Court, and Buckingham to his audience of the Poet Laureateship, Palace, whose predecessors probably fig-seeing who fills the office, although the ured originally on the staff of the Woods and Forests before this became a public department.

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Historical Painter to the Queen, the Portrait Painter to the Queen, and the Lithographer in Ordinary fell under his ban. If we turn now to the department of the For our part, we should say, if it came to Lord Chamberlain (which seems to have be felt any benefit to art, we should be drawn within itself one or two formerly quite willing to see, not one, but three or independent or quasi-independent depart- four "Sculptors to the Queen," "Enments, such as the Chapels Royal, the gravers to the Queen," Water-colour office of the Master of the Great Ward-Painters to the Queen," "Etchers to the robe, the Gentlemen-at-arms, and Yeomen Queen," &c., &c. But it may gratify Sir of the Guard), we find in like manner a Charles Dilke to hear that there was of considerable diminution of the personnel. old a Serjeant Painter" to the King, as As near as the comparison can be made, well as a "Painter in Enamel," whose and including a number of persons who offices have disappeared. under George II. are included within the The last department to be noticed is by Lord Chamberlain's department, but with- far the smallest, that of the Master of the out salaries being affixed to their names, Horse. Here too, in comparing 1738 to and who may have been mere honorary 1871, we find considerable retrenchment, purveyors, as well as Wardens and Ran--twenty-six employés instead of thirtygers of the Royal Parks, Woodwards, four. It is true that the Royal Hunt," Stewards of Manors, and others who now under the Master of the Buckhounds (who, would form part of a public department, under George II., was under the Lord the corresponding totals appear to be about 575 in 1738 against 430 in 1871, the dimunition being almost exactly that of one-fourth. 66 Cup-bearers," Carvers," "Gentlemen Sewers," "Sewers of the Chamber," have disappeared. So have also the Master of the Revels," with his

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Chamberlain,) is now conjoined with it, bringing an additional contingent of eight, besides the Master and the Hereditary Grand Falconer. The details of this subdepartment do not appear in the work of 1738, but we do find there another highlypaid officer - implying also probably a

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