152 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
restorative diet in exhausting diseases, and during 
convalescence, for which it possesses an immemo- 
tial reputation, it forms one of the most impor- 
tant articles of food which the natives of Iceland 
possess. In fact, without it they would as certainly 
perish, as the favoured inhabitants of Britain with- 
out the more highly organized cereal plants, which, 
year after year, wave in all their golden beauty 
over the whole land, and are so strikingly sugges- 
tive of nature’s bounty and munificence. What 
barley, rye, and oats are to the Indo-Caucasian 
races of Asia and Western Europe ; the olive, the 
grape, and the fig, to the inhabitants of the Medi- 
terranean districts ; the date-palm to the Egyptian 
and Arabian; rice to the Hindu; and the tea- 
plant to the Chinese—the Iceland moss is to the 
Laplanders, Icelanders, and Esquimaux. 
In Scotland, the Iceland moss grows sparingly 
on the bare wind-swept sides and summits of the 
loftiest mountains, but in Iceland it is common 
over the whole surface of the country. It attains 
a large size on the lava of the western coast, and 
in the extensive desert tracts of Skaptar-fel- 
Syssel; and numerous parties used to migrate to 
these places with all their household effects, during 
the summer months, in order to collect it, either 
for exportation to the Danish merchants, or for 
their own use as an article of common food. These 
