172 



ICELAND MOSS. 



MRS. F. 



Yes; the Iceland moss (Cetraria Islandica*), which we pro- 

 cure principally from Norway and Iceland, is also abundant 

 in certain districts in Scotland, but it has never been yet col- 

 lected there, as an article of commerce. Independent of its 

 medicinal use in coughs and consumptions, it is also gathered 

 in Iceland, in immense quantities, as an article of common 

 food. The bitter quality being first extracted by steeping in 

 water, the lichen is dried, reduced to powder, and made into 

 a cake; or it is boiled and eaten with milk, and eaten with 

 thankfulness too, by the poor natives, who confess " that a 

 bountiful Providence sends them bread out of the very 

 stones." 



Reindeer MOBS. 



The reindeer moss (Cladonia rangifcrina) must also be 

 enumerated among the most valuable of the lichens. It is an 

 inhabitant of almost every part of the world, even of the 

 tropics, but in the colder and arctic regions, it is most abun- 

 dant. It is this which, for the greater part of the year, and 

 especially in winter, is the support of the vast herds of reindeer 

 wherein consists all the wealth of the Laplander. No vegeta- 

 ble, Linnaeus tell us, grows throughout Lapland in such 

 abundance as this, especially in woods of scattered pines, 

 where, for very many miles together, the surface of the sterile 

 soil is covered with it, as with snow. On the destruction of 

 forests by fire, where no other plant Avill find nutriment, this 



