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
Portion of Desmarestia ligulata.