124 HANDY BOOK OF 



also collected ; but nowhere in such quantities as at Java. 

 In China, they are first cleansed of all foreign constituents 

 by special instruments, and then taken to market. In being 

 prepared for the table, so many spices are added that they 

 are the greatest of Chinese dainties ; but, in themselves, 

 they are nothing but fine jelly. 



The Japanese have long found out that these expensive 

 birds' nests are only softened Algse. Those sea- weeds which 

 are found in large quantities on the coast of Japan are 

 powdered by them and boiled into a thick jelly, which they 

 pour out in long pipes like maccaroni, and introduce it into 

 trade under the name of Jin-jan, as an artificial birds' -nest 

 substance. The Dutch call it Agar-agar, and eat large 

 quantities. Boiling is alone necessary to reconvert it into 

 jelly. How great the use of this vegetable jelly must be in 

 Japan is proved by the fact, that it is quoted as a production 

 of the land in geographo-statistical works. 



Thus we see that the Algee, which were considered by the 

 Romans so valueless, that, when they wished to indicate 

 anything extremely paltry, they used to say it was worse 

 than sea-weed cast ashore — projecta vilior alga — do not at all 

 deserve to be thus looked down on. Man might rather be 

 reproached because, through ignorance or prejudice, he has 

 hitherto so little used such a rich source of nourishment, 

 which nature offers him so abundantly on all flat, rocky 

 coasts. For not only are the species we have instanced 

 esculent, but several others of the most common sea-weeds 

 in the Atlantic and German Oceans (Fucus nodosus and vesi- 

 culosus, Laminaria saccharins), aswell as the gigantic Alarise 

 and D'Urvillese of the cold latitudes, afford nourishment. 

 Would it not be possible to prepare cheaply the nutriment 

 contained in sea- weed, so that it might be transported for 

 long distances ? The question certainly deserves some 

 attention ; especially at a time when the supply of the 

 necessary provision for a growing population becomes daily 

 more difficult. 



