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Updated: June 18, 2025
The facts of nutrition teach us that the first life upon the earth was vegetable; and though the vegetable world displays great complexity, and that which, on some definitions, would be called progress, yet we cannot say that there is any more mind, any greater differentiation or development of sentience, in the oak than in the alga.
It is invisible, because Nature sends it into this breathing world masquerading, as she did Richard III, deformed, unfashioned, scarce half made-up. In general appearance it closely resembles a crazy root-stalk of alga green and not quite opaque, and clinging to such alga it lives, and lives so placidly that it cannot be distinguished from its prototype except by the sense of touch.
The bosses of repose seem to indicate so much length in reserve. A dozen simple tentacles, sword-shaped, with frayed edges, and about an inch and a half long, indicate the head without decorating it, for they are of an inconspicuous neutral tint, closely resembling the alga among which the animal slowly winds its way.
The way too in which the colours are distributed is an example of Nature's most perfect artistry; on the lower, heavier buttressed parts, where the darkest hues should be, we find the browns and rust-reds of the minute aerial alga, mixed with the greys of lichen, these darker stainings extending upwards to a height of fifty or sixty feet, in places higher, then giving place to more delicate hues, the pale tender greens and greenish greys, in places tinged with yellow, the colours always appearing brightest on the smooth surface between the windows and sculptured parts.
Opposite the rude door of small twigs, held together by nothing but a few branches cut from the nearest tree, stands the simple alga of the "lord of the manor." Near his bed neighs his favourite horse, the pet of young and old. In other partitioned places are his stores of barley or wheat.
He set up the microscope and plugged in the substage light, then found a well slide and placed a drop of water on it. But examine the drop as he would, using the most powerful magnification, he could see nothing but a bit of brown debris that seemed to be a thread of withered alga. He took another drop from the coke bottle and tried again with similar results.
Of all marine plants, the Ulva latissima, or Sea-Lettuce, is first and best. It has broad, light-green fronds, and is hardy and a rapid grower, and hence a good giver of oxygen. Next to this in looks and usefulness comes the Enteromorpha compressa, a delicate, grass-like Alga. After a while the Chondrus crispus, or common Carrageen Moss, may be chosen and added.
Greys, greens, yellows, and browns and rust-reds are but the colours of a variety of lowly vegetable forms, mostly lichens and the aerial alga called iolithus. Without this colouring, its "living stains," Salisbury would not have fascinated me as it did during this last visit.
Giorgio in Alga, and several other islands, detached from the grand cluster, which I hailed as old acquaintances; innumerable prints and drawings having long since made their shapes familiar.
Davaine's bacterium develops exclusively in the blood, and is never found at any depth in the tissues. This is due to the fact that the alga, having need of oxygen in order to live, borrows its flow from the blood, and thus extracts from the globules that which they should have carried to the tissue. The animal therefore dies asphyxiated.
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