120 FOOTNOTES FROM 



and vast extents of mountain districts in Africa, Ame- 

 rica, Asia, and Australia, which at present yield no 

 products to commerce, and are too barren to support 

 higher vegetation, might furnish an unlimited supply of 

 lichens useful in dyeing. The vast continents of India 

 and neighbouring countries and islands, for instance, 

 already promise valuable results *in this respect." The 

 re-introduction of the former trade in cudbear, I may 

 add, would furnish remunerative employment to many of 

 the inhabitants of the Highlands, who have within the 

 last few years been deprived of another source of com- 

 fortable subsistence, by the discovery of barilla as a more 

 efficient substitute for the kelp, which they used to 

 gather in immense quantities on the western coasts and 

 islands, and sell to the soap-manufacturers, and who are 

 now compelled by poverty and want of work to leave 

 their native land, and seek their living on foreign 

 shores. 



I cannot conclude this chapter more appropriately, 

 than by quoting the following eloquent remarks made 

 by Ruskin, in his last volume of Modern Painters, which 

 also apply conjunctly to the subjects of the preceding 

 chapter : " Meek creatures ! the first mercy of the earth, 

 veiling with hushed softness its dentless rocks ; creatures 

 full of pity covering with strange and tender honour the 

 scarred disgrace of ruin, laying quiet finger on the trem- 

 bling stones to teach them rest. No words that I know 

 of will say what these mosses are ; none are delicate 

 enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. How 

 is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beam- 

 ing green, the starred divisions of rubied bloom, fine- 



