These lanterns are some of them extremely beautiful, and painted with all manner of gay and brilliant colours.

Once a year the Chinese hold a feast, and call it the "Feast of Lanterns," because everyone is expected to display a lantern, more or less splendid, according to his rank. On this occasion the nobles spend a great deal, both of time and money, in making their lanterns as magnificent as possible, and they would rather go without an article of luxury or dress, than run any risk of being surpassed by their neighbours. It is no uncommon thing to see a lantern so enormously large, that the owner may entertain his friends within it, or give a dance as well as in a ball

room.

Chapter the Fifth,

OTHER USES OF THE SEAWEEDS.

THE seaweeds are very highly prized by the farmer. They form an excellent manure on account of the soda they contain, and he puts them on his land to enrich and strengthen his crops.

On many parts of the coast, a busy scene presents itself after a rough gale. Every one is employed in gathering up the masses of weed, that lie strewed upon the shore. First comes the farmer with his cart, which he loads as quickly as he can, in order to carry it away and return for more. Then the cottager brings his barrow, and wheels away as much as he can for the benefit of his garden. And even the children are not idle. Baskets and bags are all in requisition, and if these are not to be had, they contrive to make a heap on one of the broad flat leaves of a seaweed, and draw their prize along by its root.

On the west coast of Ireland, the inhabitants could not grow their potatoes without this manure provided for them by the ocean, and cargoes of it are sent inland to a distance of thirty miles.

In Jersey and Guernsey, the seaweeds are called Vraic; and collecting vraic is so important a matter, that the seasons, when it is to begin, are appointed by law. These are in March and July, and last about ten days.

When the vraicking season comes on, the poorer classes sally forth, in groups of ten or twelve, to the beach. They take with them vraicking cakes, made of flour, milk, and sugar, and a little cask of something to drink; for though a season of labour, it is also one of great merriment and festivity. Each person has a scythe to cut the weeds from the cliffs, and boats are employed to carry the vraickers to those rocks which cannot be approached in any other way. When the tide is out, the beach, the rocks, and even the sea itself is covered with a multitude of people, all intent on gathering seaweeds; and so unwilling are they to retreat before the tide, that horses and carts are often seen swimming in the water.

The chief article of fuel in these Channel Islands is the seaweed thus collected, and it is

only on high days and holidays that a coal fire is ever lighted. The inhabitants keep their fires in all night, and it is no waste to do so, because the ashes of the vraic are as valuable to the farmer, as the weed before it was burnt.

But I think I have said enough about the uses of the seaweeds, and it now only remains to give you a short account of the manner in which they are distributed. In this respect they are subject to the same rule as the land plants, and like them too, are influenced by the nature of the soil, not merely in regard to their species, but to the rapidity and luxuriance of their growth. A few yards, in some instances will produce a change, and the space of three or four miles will bring us to seaweeds of quite a different character. Each zone has its own particular seaweeds. The olive-colored Algæ are most abundant in the neighbourhood of the tropics; the red chiefly abound in the temperate zone, and the green principally inhabit the polar seas.

Forests of seaweeds have been found in both hemispheres, growing at the bottom of the ocean. Their stems are eight or ten inches in circumference, and when drifting on the water, they have been mistaken for the trunks of trees, and collected for fuel.

E

In the South or Antarctic circle there is a seaweed of the giant kind, that grows in a horizontal manner, at the surface of the water, and is actually seven hundred feet in length.*

The beach of the Falkland Islands is covered for miles with the cables of this enormous many plant, all matted together, and each cable is said to be much thicker than a man's body.

The whole of Norfolk Sound is filled with another weedt of the same family. Its stem is no thicker than your finger, but it is reported by navigators to attain the wonderful length of fifteen hundred feet! Its leaves are long and narrow, and at the base of each is an air-vessel, about the size and shape of a pear. Without these bladders, it would be impossible for the plant to support itself in the water, but thus provided by nature, it can float at pleasure, and forms immense islands, that present a curious spectacle to the sailor as they drift slowly along, often covered with aquatic birds.

In the same locality is found the famous "otter cabbage," which may well be called the palm of the ocean. Its stem is slender and threadlike, but it reaches the height of seventy feet, and + M.pyrifera.

* Macrocystis luxurians.

‡ Nereocysts.