42 THE OCEAN. 
together, and all the morning stars to shout for joy. 
Yet we may, with adoring gratitude, recognise the 
love which remembers man, and provides many natu- 
ral objects for his appropriation; endowing them 
with qualities which his intelligence discovers to be 
useful, and which alleviate the privation and toil of 
his fallen condition. 
A substance called kelp, an impure carbonate of 
soda, important in the manufacture of soap and of 
glass, is the produce of these “worthless” weeds. 
Some years ago, the coasts and islands of Scotland 
yielded 20,000 tons of this valuable substance an- 
nually, which was worth ten pounds sterling per 
ton; but through the increased consumption of ba- 
villa, an alkali imported from Spain, it has some- 
what diminished. The autumnal storms detach large 
quantities of Algae (a general name applied to all 
the sea-weeds), which are washed ashore. The 
inhabitants of the coast, aware of their value, 
hurry down to secure the riches thus freely pre- 
sented, and either cast them on their fields as a va- 
luable manure, or burn them into kelp. In Scot- 
land, the kelp-kiln is nothing but a round pit, dug 
in the sand or earth on the beach, and surrounded 
by a few loose stones. In the morning a fire is 
kindled in this pit, generally with the aid of turf 
or peat. The fire is gradually fed with sea-weed, 
in such a state of dryness that it will merely burn. 
In the course of the day, the furnace becomes 
nearly full of melted matter, and iron rakes are 
then drawn rapidly backward and forward through 
the mass to compact it, or bring the whole into an 
