SEA-WEEDS. 105 



serve him for mattrasses. The Bladder Fucus is 

 the food of his horses, and in the winter time the 

 cows and sheep go down to the shore to feed upon 

 it. In Holland, both this and the Serrated Fucus 

 are used by fishermen in packing their fish for 

 exportation. Invalids who resort to our own 

 shores for the relief of glandular affections, derive 

 benefit both from the outward application of the 

 Bladder Fucus, which contains the principle of 

 iodine, and from the iodine which they inhale with 

 every breath which they draw from the sea-side. 



But nowhere is sea- weed an object of greater 

 interest than in the Channel Isles, where the 

 gathering of these plants from the rocks is made 

 the subject of frequent legislative enactions. At 

 all seasons of the year, groups of women and 

 children may be seen on the shores of Jersey, 

 diligently collecting the dark species of fucus. 

 It is used as a manure both in its fresh state, and 

 after having been reduced to ashes by being 

 burned as fuel. So general is its use as fuel, 

 that it is only on grand occasions that coal or 

 wood is added; and it must be on a festive 

 day, a birth-day, or some season sacred to the 

 " superstitions of the heart," that a coal fire 

 glimmers in the stove of a Jersey parlour. The 

 sea-wrack fuel makes a hot, though not a cheerful 

 fire, even without the addition of wood or coal ; 

 and as the ashes are so useful on the land, the 

 fire is suffered to burn by night as well as day, 

 so that, as Inglis says, " a stranger in the country 

 would, on an early morning ride, imagine that the 

 Jersey farmer and his household were astir long 

 before daybreak; for he would see the smoke 

 curling from every farm-house, and almost from 



