THE USES OF SEA- WEEDS. 55 



sweetener of the blood, and in warding off, or curing, 

 scorbutic and glandular affections. The stick which is 

 chewed by the inhabitants of the Alps affected with goitre, 

 a disease of the glands of the neck, is said to be the stem 

 of a kind of Tangle. There is, said Dr. Neill, a common 

 saying in Stronza that " he who eats of the Bidse of Guerdie 

 and drinks of the wells of Kildingie, will escape all maladies 

 except black death."*' Even/>a/e death (jmllida mors) laughs 

 at the prescriptions of the most skilful physicians, and black 

 death, it would appear, is not in the least more merciful. 

 A writer in the ' Quarterly Eeview ' says, " Bidse to the Ice- 

 lander is a plant of considerable importance. They prepare 

 it by washing it well in fresh water and exposing it to dry, 

 when it gives out a white powdery substance, which is sweet 

 and palatable, and covers the whole plant. They then pack 

 it in casks and keep it from the air, and, thus preserved, it 

 is ready to be eaten either in this state, with fish and butter ; 

 or, according to the practice of wealthier tables, boiled in 

 milk, and mixed with a little flour of rye.''' We doubt not 

 that the white powdery substance which it gives out is 

 Mamiite, which we shall afterwards show is pretty abundant 

 in several of our Sea-weeds. Cattle also are very fond of 

 this Sea-weed, and sheep are said to seek it with such avidity 



