152 NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



weed. * In England and Scotland, where this vegetable is gene- 

 rally called clep, the poor people on the coafb turn it to a good 

 account, burning great quantities of it to afhes, for which they 

 are fure to meet with a market at the glafs-houfes ; likewife by 

 reafon of the laline particles contained in thefe weeds, they are 

 boiled for pot afhes, and the fediment is known to be a good 

 manure. 



SECT. III. 



Sea-trees, Befides thefe fmaller marine produces, plants or weeds, the 



ocean here produces various fpecies of large vegetables, which are 

 known by the name of fea-trees, and though of fuch as grow in 

 a bottom, a hundred or two hundred fathom deep, none except 

 young moots can be drawn up entire, yet the nets, or lines of the 

 fifhermen entangling in the tops of fuch trees, fome of the lefler 

 branches are torn, away and pulled up to the furface ; and thefe 

 branches are fuch as may be concluded to come from large trees, 

 I having one feven inches diameter, though indeed it is the only 

 one of that dimension, the others being but two inches and a half 

 or under, like the flendereft moots of cand-trees. If I were better 

 acquainted with the latter, it would enable me to undertake a 

 comparifon betwixt the congenial produ&s of the earth and water, 

 and thus afford higher entertainment to thofe of my readers, who 

 have a tafte for botany. But as Burgermafter Anderfon, in the 

 paffage above cited, corrects the great deficiency herein, I fhall 

 add a fhort defcription of thofe in my collection, which were all 

 drawn up from the bottom of the fea along the coaft of Norway. 



uf of them * nm ^ : P rey i° u % obferve, concerning the ufe and benefit of fea- 

 trees, that the peafants hold them indifcriminately to be very fer- 

 viceable againff a diarrhoea, in which, however, they may be as 

 greatly deceived, as they too often are in their fuperftitious prac- 

 tice of hanging up a branch of a fea- tree in their houfes, as a kind 

 of tallifman or prefervative againft fire, inferring, in their way of 



* Some alio accuftom their fwine to eat the fea-weed, and for them it is likewife 

 boiled, being otherwife too hard of digeftion; more particulars on the ufe of it are to 

 be met with in the Swedifh tranfadions, worth the knowlege of the induftrious farmer, 

 who lives near the fea, and is for making the molt of every thing. 



o reafon- 



