PROPERTIES OF CRYPTOGAMIC PLANTS. 31 



kelp, if it be not tlie best. But this, important as it is in a com- 

 mercial point of view, is not the only end it serves. In tlie isles 

 of Jura and Skye, it is frequently a winter food for cattle, which 

 regularly come down to the shores at the receding of the tide to 

 seek for it ; and sometimes even the deer have been known to 

 descend from the mountains to the seaside to feed upon this 

 j)lant. Linnseus informs us that the inhabitants of Gothland, in 

 Sweden, boil this fucus with water, and, mixing with it a little 

 coarse meal or flour, feed their hogs upon it ; for which reason 

 they call the plant swintary ; and in Scania, the poor cover their 

 cottages with it, and use it for fuel. In Jura and some other 

 Hebrides, the inhabitants dry their cheeses without salt, by cov- 

 ering them with the ashes of this plant, which abounds so much 

 in that substance, that from five ounces of the ashes may be j)ro- 

 cured two and a-half of fixed alkaline salts, or half their own 

 weight. Crypt, of Eng. 



This plant is still retained by the Dublin College as ofiicinal, 

 and the U. S. Disp. left it out of its primary catalogue only 

 through mistake. It has a peculiar odor, and a nauseous, saline 

 taste. Several chemists have undertaken its analysis. It con- 

 tains much soda in saline combination, and iodine, according to 

 Gaultier de Claubry, Ann. Chim. xciii. in the state of iodide of 

 potassium ; also pectin and odorous oil. These ingredients remain 

 in its ashes, and in the charcoal resulting from its exposm'e to 

 heat in close vessels. This charcoal, which is sometimes called 

 JEtliiojps vegetabilis, or vegetahle ethiops^ has long had the repu- 

 tation of a deobstruent, and has been given in goitre and scrofu- 

 lous swellings. Its virtues were formerly ascribed chiefiy to the 

 carb. of soda, in which it abounds ; but since the discovery of 

 the medical properties of iodine, this has been considered as its 

 most active ingredient. Tlie mucus contained in the vesicles 

 was applied externally, with advantage, by Dr. Eussell, as a re- 

 solvent in scrofulous tumors. He is of the opinion that it far 

 exceeds burnt sponge, in virtue. Ann. de Chim. xxxv. and 

 xxxix. ; U. S. Disp. 1253 ; Lind., Kat. Syst. Bot. By treating the 

 distilled water of this fucus with ether, a semi-solid, white oil is 

 extracted, which is the odorous principle. Stackhouse, Diet, des 

 Sc. Kat. xvii. 500 ; Guibom't, Diet, des Drogues, ii. 395 ; Pe- 

 reira's Mat. Med. ii. 35 ; Russell's Diss, on the Use of Sea- Water, 

 1769, p. 41. Pliny states that this fucus was employed by the 

 ancients in gout, and to calm inflammatory pains. Stetler says 



