46 THE OCEAN. 
contain, many of these plants are highly nutritive, 
and cattle often feed on them with greediness. One 
of the species most extensively eaten is that known 
in Scotland by the name of Dulse (Khodomenia 
palmata). It exhibits the appearance of a very 
thin, membranaceous leaf, irregularly oblong, of a 
purplish colour, or sometimes rosy-red: there is no 
rib, but the substance is uniform; it grows from 
three inches to a foot in length. Before the in- 
troduction of tobacco, this leaf was rolled up and 
chewed in the same manner as the Virginian leaf is 
at present. It is an important plant to the inhabit- 
ants of Iceland; they wash it thoroughly in fresh 
water, and dry it in the air, when it becomes covered 
with a white powdery substance, which is sweet and 
palatable; it is then packed in close casks, and pre- 
served for eating. It is used in this state with 
fish and butter, or else, by the higher classes, 
boiled in milk, with the addition of rye-flour. In 
Kamschatka, a fermented liquor is produced from it. 
It is extremely common on all our coasts, and being 
frequently washed on shore, is sought with avidity 
by the cattle: sheep sometimes go so far in the pur- 
suit of it at low water as to be drowned by the 
returning tide. This species, with another which I 
am about to describe, was, until recently, so much 
esteemed by our northern countrymen, that it was 
publicly sold in the cities as an article of regular 
consumption. The cry of “Buy dulse and tangle,” 
resounded at no very distant period even through 
the streets of Edinburgh. The latter is the sea-weed, 
usually called in England the Sea-girdie, and in the 
