Mr. Glassford's History and Description of the Kelp Manufacture. 255 



In South Uist, WQsOB says, " the rate of wages is about £2 per ton, — 

 that the young and old, of both sexes, are engaged during two months of 

 summer, and that each family may clear upon an average £4." Each 

 individual ought to clear this as their wages, but then his living has to 

 be deducted from this sum. 



Plants Supplying the Kelp. — The drift-weed, and drift-weed kelp next 

 reqiriftt OUT consideration. The drift-weed, as I have already explained, 

 II the deep sea weeds, which become detached from the rocks by the 

 violence of the swell, and by the rolling and striking of small pebbles 

 and stones against them; they are hurled from their rocky hold, and swept 

 by impetuous currents or eddies toward the shore. As billow follows 

 billow, the mass of wreck accumulates, and is borne upon their crests 

 towards the beach, where it frequently gets piled into gigantic ridges, 

 where the retiring tide leaves them. This happens usually during the 

 days of highest spring tide, when evidently the increased force of the 

 tidal current is the more immediate cause of this curious phenomenon. 

 A single flow tide generally completes the work of destruction, and leaves 

 the shores lined, at the highest water mark, with a ridge of wreck, six, 

 eight, and sometimes ten feet high. The beaches on which the wreck is 

 thrown, are mostly, what may be termed, inland, i.e., deeply indented in 

 the shore, gently sloping towards the sea, and unencumbered with rocks 

 at the entrance. The wreck is almost entirely confined to deep sea 

 weeds, chiefly the common tangle, or Laminar ia digitata, but with a 

 great variety of other plants of the same order, adhering to their leaves 

 and stems. 



It would be impossible to do more here than allude to the family 

 of sea plants termed Algae. I have mentioned those chiefly em- 

 ployed in the kelp manufacture, because they are the most prominent 

 and largest; but there are a numerous and most beautiful class of 

 minute and various coloured plants, which, being parasitical to the larger 

 , are also employed in kelp making. Dr. Harvey in his beautiful 

 collection of marine plants, pictured in the Phycologia Britannica, has 

 figured nearly the whole of these, and added information upon the 

 habitudes, residences, and appearances of these beautiful plants. He 

 divides them into four classes, which he terms, 



I. The Fuci, or olive coloured sea weeds, which are generally of large 

 size, and leathery texture: sometimes membranaceous and leafy, 

 and more rarely of a gelatinous or filamentous nature. 

 II. The Floridecv, or red coloured sea weeds ; cartilaginous and fleshy, 

 membranaceous or gelatinous sea weeds; often filamentous; of a 

 red, purple, brown red, or livid «rreeiiish-rcd* colour. 



III. The Chlorosperms, or green sea weeds ; membranaceous or filamen- 



tous : rarely somewhat horny plants, of a green colour, and simple 

 structure. 



IV. The Corallines ; vegetables coated with I mistaceous epidermis, 

 Vol. II.— No. 4. 5 



