NORTH UIST. KELP MANUFACTURE. 123 



tages of these different practices. The weed is burnt in 

 a coffer of stones, a construction which, however rude 

 it may appear, seems fully adequate to the purpose. 



Attempts have been made to introduce kilns of a 

 more refined construction, which have failed from the 

 most obvious cause, the expense of fuel necessary for 

 their support; the inventors appearing to have forgotten 

 that the substance in the ordinary mode of treatment 

 formed its own fuel. The number of these fires which 

 during summer are for ever burning along the shores, 

 give an interest and a life to these dreary scenes ; re- 

 calling to the spectator's mind the activity of society 

 in regions where all other traces of it are nearly invisible. 

 The poet who indulges in visions' of the days of old, 

 may imagine the lighting of the war-fires, and fancy 

 he sees the signals which communicated the news of a 

 Danish descent through the warlike clans. 



The quantity of sea weed required to make a ton of 

 kelp is estimated, as I have already noticed, at 24 tons, 

 but varies according to the state of its moisture, and 

 hence a conception of the labour employed in this ma- 

 nufacture may be formed, since the whole must be cut, 

 carried on horses, spread out, dried, and stacked, before 

 it is ready for burning. 



It is a subject of frequent dispute whether the estates 

 would gain more by the conversion of this material into 

 manure, than by the kelp manufacture, but it is a question 

 of too complicated a nature to admit of a ready answer. 

 If it be admitted, as I believe the fact is, that there 

 is at present a sufficiency of this and other manure 

 already at the disposal of the small cultivator, the question 

 is fruitless. If it be supposed that the mere diversion 

 of the whole sea weed to the land would bring a larger 

 portion of that into cultivation, it will then be easy to put 

 the question, and to enter upon the calculations necessary 

 to answer it. But this is not a correct view of the case. 

 A different distribution of capital, population, and em- 



