lay BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
On another page Clarke* quotes from Aubrey de la Motraye 
(see Travels of Aubrey de la’ Motraye, vol. 2, p. 288, London, 
1732) as follows: ‘* Travelling in Sweden, in the year 1718, we 
arrived upon the site of Tornea on the 19th of March. Searcely 
a vestige of the town then remained, the Russians having burned 
it together with Umea and many other towns upon the coast. 
The inhabitants then used their Missne bread like some that we 
were afterwards compelled to eat.” And, as Aubrey de la Mo- 
traye most correctly describes the process, they made it from the 
rind of pine and fir trees in the following manner : — 
‘¢ They scrape the rough, crusty outside of the rind and clean 
' off from the peel that part of it which is soft and white; this 
they dry, and with water- or hand-mills they grind it, and with 
the meal they make their bread in the same manner as we do with 
wheaten flour. There are some who at the same time dry and 
mix it with the powder of a certain herb, also dried up, which 
they call Myessein, and which is very plenty on the river side and 
in shallow waters; and others mix meal, made of wild oats which 
they gather in the woods.” 
Clarke here goes on to say for himself that, — 
‘¢ The inhabitants of Tornea are become too fastidious now to 
feed on this primeval bread, for which the Swedish name is 
Missne; but the lapse of nearly a century has not banished it 
from the more northern parts of the country; and it is still found 
in seasons of scarcity even in Angermannland. We brought 
some of this bread to England, where it does not otherwise alter 
by keeping than that it is apt to become worm eaten, like an old 
board. In its original state, when we were forced by hunger to 
eat it, we never considered it as being worthy of the commenda- 
tion which Linnaeus bestowed upon it.t The inhabitants of 
Ostro-Bothnia call it Mdss; and thus have preserved in the name 
of a kind of bread, which served as food among the ancestors of 
all the northern nations, an undoubted etymology of our word 
mess. The name, both among the Swedes and Fins, is derived 
from that of the plant used in making it, namely, the Calla 
palustris.” 
* Travels in Various Countries, 1824, 9. 352. 
+ Panis hic albus est, dulcis.et gratissimus, praesertim recens. (Flora 
Lapponica, p. 250, Amst, 1737.) 
——= ==” 
