62 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



from saltwort from Spain, this sea- weed 

 industry was important in the manufac- 

 ture of kelp and was an important indus- 

 try on the coast of Ireland before the 

 year 1700. In 1730 it was introduced 

 into Scotland by Mr. McLeod as a source 

 of carbonate of soda and gave a product 

 worth $100 per ton. Scotland produced 

 20,000 tons per annum. Now this ma- 

 terial comes from certain sea-weeds wmich 

 are known under various names; they 

 are Yellow Wrack, Black Wrack. I 

 have some samples of the small varieties. 

 You know what Irish Moss is, and I 

 have here through the kindness of Dr. 

 Jelliffe and Dr. Rusby some samples. 

 Now, there are some mounted samples 

 here, you can see the kind of algae they 

 are. There is also a certain Euchemia 

 sea- weed, — you know the variety of 

 Agar-Agar, the Japanese material. Then 

 we have a very curious kind of sea-weed, 

 called L,aminaria, or the sugar-wrack as 

 it is sometimes called. Here is a small 

 specimen of it very beautifully mounted, 

 and I have here one of those large ones, 

 — it is broken, and this piece should be 

 added on the end here; it is about 8 ft. 

 long. The peculiarity of it is it produces 

 a sweet material which we have learned 

 is manna sugar. Seven per cent, of it is 

 produced by a kind of fermentation. 

 Then there is Fucus, the bladder- wrack, 

 — these are here, all mounted carefully 

 and give you an idea of the kind of plant 

 life which produce this sea- weed. They 

 all produce soda and were the only 

 sources of alkali for making glass and 

 soap. 



There are certain giant algae. Here 

 are some small samples that grow along 

 the coast of Scotland, 1,500 feet or a 

 quarter of a mile long and this d' Urvilleae 

 is like a tree in the ocean, it has branches 

 12 or 14 feet long aud a trunk a foot in 

 diameter; these are the kind of sea-weeds 

 used in the production of kelp and also 



of algin. You must not suppose that 

 this kelp that you get is the same in ail 

 cases; some varieties give an excess of 

 potash salt and some varieties give an 

 excess of soda. The kelp variety when 

 they wash out will give from 86 to 90 

 per cent, of salt. Now, in conjunction 

 with the kelp I want to speak of iodine. 

 In getting kelp it was easy to obtain the 

 salts. In 18 1 2 Courtois discovered io- 

 dine. He was making potashes in order 

 to make nitrate of potash and he found a 

 certain substance that acted upon his 

 kettles and corroded them, — it gave a 

 violet vapor, and he called it iodine from 

 iodus, a Greek word for violet. The 

 larger part of these sea-weeds give us 

 this iodine, — the one which you can test 

 for yourselves is common Turkey sponge; 

 the sponge contains about 2 per cent, of 

 iodine, and it can be readily detected, 

 Now at the beginning of this century 

 this material was worth about $100 per 

 ton and it was used for soap and glass. 

 Incidentally to the composition of iodine 



1 may say whatever the amount of iodine 

 contained in the ashes of the sea-weed 

 there is 1-10 of bromine in the same ma- 

 terial. The larger algae such as d'Ur- 

 villeee give us very little iodine, but they 

 give potash salts. Laminaria and simi- 

 lar varieties give 10 lbs. of iodine to the 

 ton, common Fucus, Black and Yellow 

 Wrack, like this, give only about 1.3 to 



2 lbs. of iodine to the ton. There is a 

 variety called sea-oak, I don't happen to 

 have a sample of it, that gives about 4^2 

 to the ton. The method of burning to 

 ashes in pits, kilns and holes spoils it for 

 iodine. 



Now, a gentleman in Scotland took 

 this subject up some years ago, — he 

 made some very remarkable experiments 

 and also some immense improvements in 

 the production of iodine. Mr. E. C. 

 Stanford conceived the idea of submitting 

 the dried algae to destructive distillation 



