OF ROCKS. 233 



rocks, and might, by a careless observer, be taken 

 for a patch of mortar, produces very beautiful 

 shades of crimson and purple ; and cudbear, (Lichen 

 tartareus,} which forms greyish patches, is found 

 so valuable in giving a bloom to colours, that there 

 are manufactories for the express purpose of pre- 

 paring it, and people who resort to the rocks and 

 earn their living by scraping it off. Hard as it is, 

 it grows much faster than would be supposed ; 

 and the cultivator of it (if he can be so called) has 

 little labour compared with other cultivators, as 

 he has merely to come and scrape the rocks once 

 in every five years, when he finds as much as re- 

 pays his labour. Those hard and apparently use- 

 less productions of the rocks, are not only useful, 

 as may be seen from the two instances that have 

 beenmentioned, andof which there would, nodoubt, 

 be many more instances, if those who are much in 

 the wild places where lichens are most abundant 

 would look at what is around them, and find out 

 what it is good for; but imagining that a place must 

 be barren in every respect, because it is barren in 

 those productions which abound in places of quite 

 a different character, is a folly by means of which 

 we are left without much useful information with 

 regard to nature, of which we might otherwise be 

 in possession, and deprived of the use of many 

 things in the arts of which we might otherwise be 

 in the enjoyment. That folly is as absurd as it is 

 mischievous. No man would think of taking 

 hounds to sea in order to course game, or propose 

 going to the moors with boats and harpoons, or 

 white fish lines. Now, though in many cases the 

 absurdity is not so striking as it is in these, yet 

 so far as it goes it is just as absurd. And it is far 

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