The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1901-08-28
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sesnb Ale Used for Dyes Others Ara
Rood for Many People.


Ale Used foR Dyes-O Others Ara
Food for Many People.
The grayish- green or straw-colored
ichen, which Shakespe calls t'idle-
moss once enjoyed great reputa-
ton as q tonic and anodyne. 1t was
formerly the basis of hair powders and
perfumes, and it still is used in the
preparation of fine orange dyes. The
prettiest pieces are found on fir trees,
and wild animals eat itwith ayidity.
The ability to color wildly is the
epecialty of famous lichens. The
Beautiful Scotch tartans for many
centuries were dyed entirely from diff
ferent liohens, heather tyigs and
birch leaves, and no better or mora
lasting colors have been obtained from
woods and chemicals. The Scotch
eudbear gives a color almost equal to
the famous orchil, and another of the
same family, found on the rocks of
southern France, imparts the last bril-
liant finish to French silks of every
shade OF rose color and crimson.
The most valuable of the ichen
family, however, is roccella, which is
used to inrpart an exquisite lilac OF
purple tinge to rich silks. Its an all
most colorless lichen, and, when gath
cred in large quantities, has the per-
5ulne of pri1nroses.
a Florentine family discovered its
virtue, and it was long their secret,
though many believe that it is the
same moss spoken of by Dioscorides
and Theophrastus, and used in their
day for dyeing wool.
AS ichens grown in very hot eli
mates yield the finest color, most of
those imported by manufacturers
come from India, Ceylon and the arid
rocks of Alden, Socotra and the Cape
de Verde islands.
The Swiss make their favorite do
nestle dye from the beautiful golden
colored nchen found on the shrubs
and on elm trees, and the Swedes
serape it into the tallow of which they
make their golden festival candles"
But lichens have more important
offices still. To the Icelander, lap
lander and Eskimo the lichen called
Iceland moss is everything that wheat
is to the Caucasian or rice to the Hin
doc. 1t contains full so per cent. of
starch, and hence its value as food,
The Icelanders use it in powder for
bread, they add it to their soup, they
boil it in milk, they make porridge
of it, they dry it in small pieces for
fodder for their cattle; in fact, it is
80 necessary to their life in every way
that they acknowledge piously: "a
bountiful Providence sends us bread
out of the very stones"
On the uncultwed pastures of Lap
land the deer, which are the sole
wealth of the Laps, browse, and with
out this proyision-the snowy tufts
of the lichen known as reindeer moss
the country would be absolutely I'M
inhabitable.
When the ground is covered with
snow then another lichen, called rock
hair, takes its place. This ichen, in
the vast, dreary pine forests of that
gloomy country, is a most peculiar
feature. It's huge, dusky funeral fes-
ICONS stretch from tree to tree, ex-
1haling damp, earthly smell, and Gre
'ating a perpetual twilight. But it is
life to the reindeer, and the reindeer
Is life to man.
In Algeria, Tartary and Persia
there is an edible species of Hchen of
apparent supernatural origin. Sud-
denly it falls on the ground like a
rain, often to the depth Of three inches
or more. 1t is in small Jumps like q
pea, grayish, irregular, inodorous and
insipid, having at no time any appear
ance of base of support.
In 1929, during war between Rus
sia and Persia, when large tracts of
country on the Caspian sea were in a
state Of famine, they were suddenly
covered by this lichen, which seemed
indeed to fall from Heaven.
The sheep ate it greedily, and the
famished people, instructed by them,
made it into bread Rains of edible
Gchen, we'll authenticated, occurred
during the siege of Herat, and also as
late as 1916 one fell at wilma.
In the department Of medicine
lichens have weird and magical rep
utation. They were also favorites of
the early alchemists, and formed part
and portion of all their sympathetic
ointments and remarkable distilla.
lions. In the making of parchment
and pasteboard they have already
largely usurped the place Of gum
arabic, and are also of great impor-
lance in the preparation of perfumes
and other toilet articles.-N. Y.
I,ed2er.
Point Pleasant is town of pref
ty churches, but they are not APP
preoiated by the general run of its
paoDla