APPENDIX. 393 



richer in exports, the communication .with Ireland is more direct, 

 and Milford affords a safer harbour for the fleet than Portsmouth ? 

 Assuredly it was ; and foreign interests have alone elicited an 

 opposite tendency. The Flemish trade peopled the Channel with 

 a fleet of merchantmen, the Hanseatic counting-houses of London 

 brought the trade of the country into notice, English wool began to 

 be thence exported, the ceaseless disputes with France rendered a 

 fleet and a harbour of safety in the Channel necessary ; the bar- 

 barism in which Ireland had lain so long has prevented the existence 

 of a flourishing trade between the two countries. . . . 



' Matlock. Lich.calcar., Lich. saxatil., Lich. tartar., and Verruc. 

 pertusa grow wild nearly over the whole of Northern Europe, yet 

 after reading the patriotic treatises of Damboucney (" Precedes sur 

 les Teintures solides que nos vegetaux indigenes communiquent aux 

 laines, etc.," Paris, 1786), and Hoffmann (" De vario Lichenum usu." . 

 Erlangee, 1786), we continue to import from the Canaries, Cape de 

 Verd Islands, the Grecian Archipelago, or the South of France, 

 dyes which might readily be procured from our native lichens. We 

 import litmus from the Dutch and the English, and forget that it 

 has been by them manufactured from Lich. saxatil., which grows 

 with us on every tree, post, or stone. (See Ferber's "Keue Beitrage 

 zur Mineralgeschichte," i. 455, on the manufacture of litmus at 

 Leith, in Scotland, where 200 men are employed in the collection of 

 Lich. saxatil.) Our ignorance is so extreme, that we still allow our- 

 selves to be deceived by Jacobson's statement that litmus is manu- 

 factured from Croton tinctor., or the Tournesol of Grand Gatargues, 

 and not from Lich. tartar. (SeeDemachy, " Laborant im Grossen," ii. 

 273, " Technologisches Worterbuch," ii. 544.) The study of crypto- 

 gamia is not therefore of so little value as is generally supposed. 

 Sound political economy would even make lichens contribute to the 

 wealth of a nation. 



* Poole's Hole. 560 yards in length. It lies to the south-west of 

 Buxton, towards the limestone mountain of Axe-Edge, on the banks 

 of the little river Wye. As the cave is narrow, more beautiful 

 stalactites are formed in it than in the Peak Cavern. The two 

 largest have received the names of the Flitch of Bacon and the 

 Queen of Scots' Pillar, the latter called after the unfortunate Mary 

 Stuart, who is supposed to have visited the Cave while a prisoner at 

 Chatsworth. A small stream issues from the cavern. On the road 

 from Buxton to the Cave I found some quantity of Saxifraga granu- 

 lata and S. tridaetylites. At the entrance of the Cave I noticed 

 Viola montana, Alchemilla vulgar., and Polypod. vulg. 



' In the neighbourhood of Poole's Cavern are several lime-kilns 

 in the open air ; for in England lime is burnt in the open air, and 



