ON SEA- WEEDS. 159 



stem is selected, and cut into pieces about four inches 

 long. Into these are stuck blades of knives, such as 

 gardeners use for pruning and grafting; as the stem 

 dries, it contracts and hardens, closely and firmly 

 embracing the hilt of the blade. In the course of 

 some months, the handles become quite firm, and very 

 hard and shrivelled, so that when tipped with metal 

 they are hardly to be distinguished from hart's horn.' 

 Neither do we envy the inhabitants of Orkney, Shet- 

 land, and the Channel Islands, the use of the plant 

 as fuel. Having abundance of good pit coal at hand, 

 we are very thankful that we need not have recourse 

 to tangle. Were it converted into peat, we should 

 not be unwilling to use it; and we have seen it thus 

 metamorphosed, but on too small a scale to be useful. 

 This was among sandhills on the coast of Ayrshire, 

 where it had been drifted a considerable way inland 

 by some unusually high tide ; and having been deeply 

 covered with driven sand, it had lain, it may be, for 

 ages, and had become a layer of peat about two inches 

 thick, in which the stout tubular rind of the tangle 

 stem, in a compressed state, was quite distinguishable. 

 " But far from unimportant are the purposes to 

 which it has been put in the formation of kelp, to 

 which the stems, and indeed the whole of this plant, 

 greatly contribute. Who would have thought that 

 burned sea- weed would ever have been found useful in 

 the manufacture of such a substance as glass ? And 

 yet, till lately, the materials out of which the best 

 window-glass was formed, were two parts of kelp 



