FRODSHAM, a small town of England, in the county of Chester, is agreeably situated on a rising ground near the confluence of the rivers Weaver and Mersey, and be neath the hills which form the northern extremity of Dela mere Forest. The town consists of two wide and well paved streets, intersecting each other at right angles; and_at the upper ex remity of one of them, upon very high ground, stands the church, which is an old and handsome building. It was repaired and beautified in 1790. Near the church is a school, with an excellent house for the master, having a cupola for the purpose of erecting an observatory. Bea con Hill, which stands behind the school, commands a fine prospect of the estuary of the Dee and the remote parts of Lancashire. The hill is now cut out into walks, which lead gradually to the summit. There are buts for the practice of archery at the foot of the hill. Frodsham BridO, over the Weaver, is about a mile to the cast of the town ; and at some distance from it, on the river side, arc works for the refining of rock salt, which give sonic em ployment to the inhabitants. There is a small cotton ma nufactory in the town, and a graving dock and yard have lately been erected for building and repairing vessels. One of the springs which supplies the town with water dis charges 1700 gallons in a minute, and is used as a cold bath. Great quantities of potatoes are cultivated in the parish, amounting sometimes to 100,000 bushels, of nearly one hundred weight each, annually.
The following is the population of the township and lordship together for 1811.
FUN TuE Foci constitute a tribe of plants, commonly inclu ded, along with Ulva and Marine Conferva, under the more general title of Submersed Alga, or Thalassiofihyta, (from 8:2),,x7,7-105, marine, and ovzov, a fzlant) and well known in this country by the popular name of Sea Weeds, (a fami liar appellation which we shall not scruple to employ). In Scotland, the name wrack (probably from the French varec) is often applied to those foci which are cut on the shores for the manufacture of kelp. In the Sexual System,
the foci form part of the third order, Alga, of the last class Cryptogamia ; an order in which Litumus included Jungermannia, and the other genera now denominated Hepatica. In the system of Tournefort, they form part of the second section, Plante marine, Scc. of the 17th class, ?isperme vulgo habite. The word fume, (ckixo;), which means a paint, may be supposed to allude to the quality possessed by some of the small reddish species, of afford ing a sort of rouge.
It is not easy to class the thalassiophytes with any of the families of land plants. In the most recent systematic works, they are placed after the Tremella, with which they are connected by the Ulva. To the Lichenes, which follow them, they are more closely allied : So great is the affinity of one little species, Fucus pygmaus,* that in the Flora Danica it is described by the name of Lichen Con finis, and in the Methodus Lichenum of Dr Acharius, as a Stercocaulon. The general resemblance between the rein deer lichen and two plants figured by Mr Turner, in Ma History of Fuci, F. viscidus, t 119, and F. amphibius, t. 109, is striking ; and the ramuli of F. Cuemnitzia, (t. c00), greatly resemble the shields of Parmelia perforata elevated on peduncles. If more illustration be wanting, it may he noticed, that four different species of sea-weed have, at different times, on account of their similarity to lichens, received the trivial name of lichenoides.
In some of the fuci, other sulking resemblances to cer tain land plants may be traced ; but these arc of no impor tance towards their classification. To creeping land plants, they are allied by a curious family, known by the title of Caulerpx, to be afterwards described. In general appear ance, some fuci resemble filices, and others musci : F. membranaceus, (Turn. t. 158), and F. \Voodwardia, Oren Brit. p. 13, t. 6), are very like ferns of the genus \Vood wardia ; and the frond of F. scalpelliformis, (Turn. t. 174), has a great similarity to some mosses of the genus Fissi dens.