a name given by the ancients to certain dyes and paints. By this name they called a purple sea-plant used by them to dye woollen and linen things. Fucus.

The dye was very beautiful, but not lasting; for it soon began to change, and in time went wholly off. This is the account Theophrastus gives of it.

The women of those times also used something called fucus, to stain their cheeks red; and many have supposed, from the same word expressing both, that the same substance was used on both occasions. But this, on a strict inquiry, proves not to be the case. The Greeks called everything fucus, that would stain or paint the flesh. But this peculiar substance used by the women to paint their cheeks was distinguished from the others by the name of rizium among the more correct writers, and was indeed a root brought from Syria into Greece. The Latins, in imitation of the Greek name, called this root radicula, and Pliny very erroneously confounds the plant with the radix lunaria, or jfruthion of the Greeks.

The word fucus was in those times become such an universal name for paint, that the Greeks and Romans had a fucus metallicus, which was the cerus used for painting the neck and arms white; after which they used the purpurifum, or red fucus of the rizium, to give the colour to the cheeks. In after-times they also used a peculiar fucus or paint for the purpose, prepared of the Creta argentaria, or silver-chalk, and some of the rich purple dyes that were in use at that time; and this seems to have been very little different from our rose-pink; a colour commonly sold at the colour-shops, and used on like occasions.

the Linnaean system of botany, is a genus of the order of algæ, belonging to the cryptogamia class of plants. The most remarkable species are:

1. The ferratus, ferrated fucus, or sea-wrack. This is frequent at all seasons of the year upon the rocks at low-water mark, but produces its seeds in July and August. It consists of a flat, radical, and dichotomous leaf, about two feet long; the branches half an inch wide, ferrated on the edges with dents of unequal size, and at unequal distances, having a flat stalk or rib divided like the leaf, and running in the middle of it through all its various ramifications. A small species of coralline called by Linnæus Sertularia pumila, frequently creeps along the leaf. All the species of fucus afford a quantity of impure alkaline salt; but this much less than some others, eight ounces of the ashes yielding only three of fixed salt. The Dutch cover their crabs and lobsters with this fucus to keep them alive and moist; and prefer it to any other, as being destitute of those mucous vesicles with which some of the rest abound, and which would sooner ferment and become putrid.

2. The vesiculofus, bladder fucus, common sea-wrack, or sea-ware. It grows in great abundance on the sea-rocks about low-water mark; producing its fructifications in July and August. It has the same habit, colour, and substance as the foregoing; but differs from it in the following respects: The edges of the leaf have no serratures, but are quite entire. In the disc or surface are immersed hollow, spherical, or oval air-bladders, hairy within, growing generally in pairs, but often single in the angles of the branches, which are most probably air-bladders destined to buoy up the plant in the water. Lastly, on the summits or extreme segments of the leaves, appear tumid vesicles about three quarters of an inch long, sometimes oval and in pairs, sometimes single and bifid, with a clear viscid mucus interposed with downy hairs.—This species is an excellent manure for land; for which purpose it is often applied in the maritime parts of Scotland and other countries. In the islands of Jura and Skye it frequently serves as a winter-food for cattle, which regularly come down to the shores at the recesses of the tides to seek for it. And sometimes even the flags have been observed, after a storm, to descend from the mountains to the sea-sides to feed upon this plant.

Linnaeus informs us, that the inhabitants of Gothland in Sweden boil this fucus in water, and mixing therewith a little coarse meal or flour, feed their hogs with it; for which reason they call the plant fuscintang. And in Scania, he says, the poor people cover their cottages with it, and sometimes use it for fuel.

In Jura, and some other of the Hebrides, the inhabitants dry their cheeses without salt, by covering them with the ashes of this plant; which abounds with such quantity of salts, that from five ounces of the ashes may be procured two ounces and a half of fixed alkaline salts, that is, half of their whole weight.

But the most beneficial use to which the fucus vesiculosus is applied, in the way of economy, is in making pot-ash or kelp, a work much practised in the Western Isles. There is great difference in the goodness and price of this commodity, and much care and skill required in properly making it. That is effected the best which is hardest, finest grain'd, and free from sand or earth. The price of kelp in Jura is £1. 10s. per ton, and about 40 or 50 tons are exported annually from that island. So great a value is set upon this fucus by the inhabitants of that place, that they have sometimes thought it worth their while to roll fragments of rocks and huge stones into the sea, in order to invite the growth of it.

Its virtues in the medical way have been much celebrated by Dr Russel, in his Dissertation concerning the use of Sea-water in the Diseases of the Glands. He found the faponaceous liquor or mucus in the vesicles of this plant to be an excellent revolvent, extremely serviceable in dispersing all scorbatic and scrophulous swellings of the glands. He recommends the patient to rub the tumor with these vesicles bruised in his hand, till the mucus has thoroughly penetrated the part, and afterwards to wash with sea-water. Or otherwise, to gather two pounds of the tumid vesicles, in the month of July, when they are full of mucus, and infuse them in a quart of sea-water, in a glass-vessel, for the space of 15 days, when the liquor will have acquired nearly the consistence of honey. Then strain it off through a linen cloth, and rub this liquor with the hand, as before, three or four times a day, upon any hard or scrophulous swellings, washing the parts afterwards with sea-water, and nothing can be more efficacious to disperse them. Even scirrhosities, he says, in women's breasts, have been dispelled by this treatment. The same author, by calcining the plant in the open air, made a very black salt powder, which he called vegetable ethiops; a medicine much in use as a revolvent and deobstruent, and recommended also as an excellent dentifrice, to correct the scorbutic laxity of the gums, and take off the foulness of the teeth.

3. The plicatus, matted or Indian-grass fucus, grows on the sea-shores in many places both of Scotland and England. It is generally about three or four, but sometimes six, inches long. Its colour, after being exposed to the sun and air, is yellowish, or auburn; its substance pellucid, tough, and horny, so as to bear a strong resemblance to what the anglers call Indian grass, that is, the tendrils issuing from the ovary of the dog-fish.

4. The palmatus, palmated or sweet fucus, commonly called dulce or dilfe. This grows plentifully on the sea-coasts of Scotland, and the adjoining islands. Its substance is membranaceous, thin, and pellucid; the colour red, sometimes green with a little mixture of red; its length generally about five or six inches, but varies from three inches to a foot; its manner of growth fan-shaped, or gradually dilated from the base upwards. Its divisions are extremely various. The inhabitants both of Scotland and England take pleasure in eating this plant, without expecting any medical virtues from it. The inhabitants of the Archipelago also are fond of it, as we learn from Steller. They sometimes eat it raw, but esteem it most when added to ragouts, oglios, &c. to which it gives a red colour; and, dissolving, renders them thick and gelatinous. In the Isle of Skye it is sometimes used in fevers to promote a sweat, being boiled in water with the addition of a little butter. In this manner it also frequently purges. The dried leaves, infused in water, exhale the scent of violets.

5. The succulentus, eatable fucus, or bladder-locks, commonly called tangle in Scotland, is likewise a native of the British shores. It is commonly about four feet long, and seven or eight inches wide; but is sometimes found three yards or more in length, and a foot in width. Small specimens are not above a cubit long, and two inches broad. The substance is thin, membranaceous, and pellucid; the colour green or olive. The root consists of tough cartilaginous fibres. The stalk is about six inches long and half an inch wide, nearly square, and pinnaed in the middle between the root and origin of the leaf, with ten or a dozen pair of thick, cartilaginous, oval-obtuse, foliaceous ligaments, each about two inches long, and crowded together. The leaf is of an oval-lanceolate, or long elliptic form, simple and undivided, waved on the edges, and widely ribbed in the middle from bottom to top, the stalk running through its whole length, and standing out on both sides of the leaf. This fucus is eaten in the north both by men and cattle. Its proper season is in the month of September, when it is in greatest perfection. The membranous part is rejected, and the stalk only is eaten. It is recommended in the disorder called pica, to strengthen the stomach and restore the appetite.

6. The fuscarius, sweet fucus, or sea-belt, is very common on the sea-coast. The substance of this is cartilaginous and leathery; and the leaf is quite ribbed. By these characters it is distinguished from the preceding, to which it is nearly allied. It consists only of one simple, linear, elliptic leaf, of a tawny green colour, about five feet long and three inches wide in its full-grown state; but varies so exceedingly as to be found from a foot to four yards in length. The ordinary length of the stalk is two inches, but it varies even to a foot. The root is composed of branched fibres, which adhere to the stones like claws. This plant is often infested with the fucaria ciliata. The inhabitants of Iceland make a kind of pottage of this fucus; boiling it in milk, and eating it with a spoon. They also soak it in fresh water, dry it in the sun, and then lay it up in wooden vessels, where in a short time it is covered with a white efflorescence of sea salt, which has a sweet taste like sugar. This they eat with butter; but if taken in too great a quantity, the salt is apt to irritate the bowels and bring on a purging. Their cattle feed and get fat upon this plant, both in its recent and dry state; but their flesh acquires a bad flavour. It is sometimes eaten by the common people on the coast of England, being boiled as a pot-herb.

7. The ciliatus, ciliated or ligulated fucus, is found on the shores of Iona and other places, but is not common. The colour of this is red, the substance membranous and pellucid, without rib or nerve; the ordinary height of the whole plant about four or five inches. It is variable in its appearance, according to the different stages of its growth. This fucus is eaten by the Scots and Irish promiscuously with the fucus palmatus or dilfe.

8. The prolifer, or proliferous fucus, is found on the shores of the western coast, adhering to shells and stones. The colour is red; the substance membranaceous, but tough, and somewhat cartilaginous, without rib or nerve, though thicker in the middle than at the edges. The whole length of the plant is about four or five inches, the breadth of each leaf about a quarter of an inch. The growth of this fucus, when examined with attention, appears to be extremely singular and wonderful. It takes its origin either from a simple, entire, narrow, elliptic leaf, about an inch and a half long; or from a dilated forked one, of the same length. Near the extremity of the elliptic leaf, or the points of the forked one (but out of the surface, and not the edge), arises one or more elliptic or forked leaves, which produce other similar ones, in the same manner, near the summits; and so on continually one or more leaves from near the ends of each other, in a proliferous and dichotomous order, to the top of the plant; which in the manner of its growth resembles in a good measure the cactus opuntia, or flat-leaved Indian fig. Sometimes two or three leaves, or more, grow out of the middle of the disc of another leaf; but this is not the common order of their growth. The fructifications are red, spherical, rough warts, less than the smallest pin's head, scattered without order on the surface of the leaves. These warts, when highly magnified, appear to be the curled rudiments of young leaves; which in due time either drop off and form new plants, or continue on and germinate upon the parent. This plant is very much infested with the flustra pilota, the mandrepora verrucaria, and other corallines, which make it appear as if covered with white fleas.

9. The pinnatifidus, jagged fucus, or pepper-dilfe, is frequent on sea-rocks which are covered by the tides, both on the eastern and western coasts. It is of a yellow olive-colour, often tinged with red. The substance is cartilaginous, but yet tender and transparent; the height about two or three inches. This fu-