Morning journal and courier., 1885-08-05

1 people around its works, so the people ros' ] up and destroyed the pits. Arrests and suits l followed, and learned counsel told learned l jurists that the suffocating smoke would de stfoy the sheep and cattle of the heighbor l hood, drive the fish from the coasts and ere | ate epidemic among the populace. But l they were mistaken. When the people got I to know more about it twenty thousand peo- pie engaged in the Orkneys alone in gather | ing the weed that came to be called kelp, and 1 the Orkney man in foreign land grew home l sick when he recalled the wild crags of his native coast and the rocks that covered the ! beach when the tide was low, for he saw a picture of old comrades stepping from rock ! to rock cutting the long fronds of kelp from l their roots, while women and children, with l song and jest and laughter, gathered the har- vest into heaps.
 The rocky shores of the coasts of Europe are famous for their luxuriant growth of sea- ! weed. One variety is known as Lucky Min ny's lines The arms or fronds grow to a length of forty feet. When outer bark and gelatinous flameAts are removed the frond is found to be composed of single flament like thread of silk, that grows in coil, forming tube, the edges of the flament ad- the coast people, and when braided up in a four-ply cord makes fish line of extraordi- nary strength.
 Do you happen to carry pocket knife with buckhorn handle! Ah, it is of Eng fish make, too. It is very good knife, but that handle is as innocent of buckhorn as 8 lead-pencil is of lead. The rough sides, which everyone must admire, are made of pieces of sea-weed that is found, I believe, exclusively the Scotland coast. 1t is so much like buckhorn when clesned and the cut edges polished that experts are often de- ! ceived. Another weed, called grass wrack, | is so much like hair that it takes it's place in ha inc article.
 In the mighty waves that dash on the rocks of Terra del Fuego after rolling across an al- | most Hmitless ocean there is kind of weed 1 with a stem that reaches the surface through 1 four hundred feet of water It is bladder ] wraek. Under it's leaves Darwin says, there are numerous kinds of fish and bivalves that could get an existence nowhere else Great f1ocks of sea gulls, divers and other birds subsist on the fish, as we'll seals and otters, while from the animals, fish and birds the wretched inhabitants of that inhospitable country gain living. Without the sea-weed almost the whole animal kingdom of that l part of the world would cease to exist. | Another curious variety of the southern sea-weed is the gigantic Lessonise of the Falkland Islands. It has body of per haps three feet long and foot in diameter; sort of log, from one end of which trail ing vines grow out in all directions. The
 
 the open sea the long vines roll up into mon- ster cables hundreds of feet long and often two feet in diameter. Should of these get foul of ship it is tiresome job to cut | it adrift, for cut it must be. No ship can make headway with such drag out.
 No one can talk of sea weed without re- ferring to class of marine animal life that is but one remove from the vegetable king dom. I mean the polypes. All varieties of polypes have body like a bag surrounding a cylindrical stomach, which opens in wide mouth at the top. From the tips there grows fringe of long tentacles that are al most invisible as they spread out and move about in the water. But as the tiny fish and crustaceans which form their food come within reach the tentacles close in with re- sstless grasp, piercing the victims with mi
 mute needles, poisoning them with an acid
 liquid and hurrying them into the gaping
 mouth. These called the lowest forms of
 animal life. They have no nerves and there fore sustain no shocks. Their tenacity of life is such that they stand freezing or
 scalding without material change, while if a
 part is amputated another grows in it's place. They seldom move from the places of their birth. They have no occasion to do so, for their food comes to them in endless quanti- ties. They are never in want. They dwell
 in the cool, inviting depths of the ocean.
 They are without pain and without sorrow.