Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-08-14
AN IRISH SEA HARVEST
OLD NEPTUNES BARRIER AGAINST
GAUNT FAMINE.
The Fires of the Kelp Makers Light Up
the Coast Line of Erin in
Summer Months.

A visitor to the western and south
western Irish seaboard in summer will
see the ascending smoke of many fires.
On a warm day, when the air is still,
the smoke hangs low and trails far over
the bare downs. The mystifed and i'm
aginative traveller may then receive the
passing impression that he has been sud
denly and mysteriously transported back
into classical times and is watching fu-
neral pyres, say, on the shores of the
Aegean. Should he be to leeward of the
trailing smoke an acrid odOr as of the
burning bones comes to his nOstrlls, al
most confirming the illusion. In a way,
indeed, those are funeral pyres, and they
are consuming old Neptune's bones, says
the Manchester Guardian. For are not
the great branch-like masses Of sea-
wrack burning there the very bones of
the sea god?
Those are the fires of the kelp makers,
who are taking their sea harvest
through its final stage. For many
months men. women and children have
been busy gathering the wrack for this
burning. The unusually high winds
which prevailed during the last autumn
and winter gave good harvest to the
wrack gatherers, plentifully piling their
spoils within easy reach. But all sea
Wrack cannot be made into kelp, and
what the sea casts up is not so good for
the purpose as that which is actually
cut from the rocks. The cutting of the
wrack is done by men in boats, neces
sarily on a very calm day. Two men
work together, one reaching the sea-
weed with long pole to which a cutter
into the boat by a kind of drag. AS it
requires approximately "a tons of sea-
weed to produce 1 ton of kelp, and as
in winter time calm days are rare on
those coasts, it needs good luck to get
even the promise of a good harvest
But the kelp making is exclusively con-
fined to the most poverty stricken re-
gions Of Ireland, to districts where the
potato-the mainstay Of life-is periodi-
cally blighted by the damp climate, and
where the heads of families, fishermen
of necessity during the autumn and win
ter, can only occasionally venture out to
sea in their frail corraghs, or boats,
made of tarred canvas stretched on
frame. In those parts hunger is never
very far from the peasants door, and
there is therefore the strongest incentive
for the wrack gatherers to work hard.
The collecting of the wrack is but the
first phase of a long process. For it has
then to be spread out on the ground or
on the universal ''fences''-or low stone
walls of loose stones-to dry. That gen
orally takes Il good deal of time in a
climate where rain is specially frequent
and abundant. When the wrack is super
ficially dried it is made up into stacks
or cocks" The month of May will
have come before it is fit for burning,
and then the making of the kelp goes on
all through the summer. This last pro-
cess is carried out in shallow, grave
like pits of about fifteen feet long by
three feet wide. The wrack-called, in
the vernacular. 'feamanach"-is burned
little by little. The resultant kelp-or, in
T1se 11vNSS +o1- Of %1,o %1r->
III some districts the seaweed is burned
merely to an ash. while in others the
burning is continued until a slag-like sub
stance is produced. In either case the
product is sold to factors" or agents,
who visit the district at the proper sea-
son, and is by them exported to chemical
manufacturers, mostly to Scotland. 1t is
to be regretted that the kelp cannot be
dealt with in Ireland, so that those who
make it might gain more profit by the
industry, but, although the attempt has
been made, it met with only a qualified
success.
At one time kelp was the sole source of
iodine and also the main source of So
dunn AID potassium and their by-prod
ucts. Long since, however, the industry
received its first blow, when sodium be-
gan to be produced in other ways, as it
now entirely is. Then kelp ceased to be
used for the production of potash, and
advance in chemical science has resulted
in iodine being obtained from the nj
trates. Nowadays large deposits of salt
peter are being mined in various coun-
tries, especially in South America and
Germany, solely for this purpose. It is
not to be wondered at that in such cir
cumstances kelp making is now one of
Ireland's dying industries. While only
about ten years ago f6 los. to E10 ton
was obtainable. the price last season had
gone down to from f3 to Ed los. ton.
One ton of kelp produces only eleven
pounds of iodine, at IS. a pound, so that
the kelp makers cannot now gain much
be remembered, too, that this proportion
of iodine is got from the best kelp, and
it is contended that the kelp makers have
of recent years become careless, prOduc
ing an inferior article. If that is so |
could not greatly blame them, but |
quiries from those who should know, to
satisfy myself as to the truth of that
charge.
Although the number of kelp makers
is growing smaller year by year, the in
dustry is still a relatively important one
in the remote districts where it is car
ried on. Nowadays it is generally
farmer or other holder of a portion of
foreshore allows man, who is usually
assisted by his family, to gather and
burn the seawrack, and the profit from
the keIp is equally divided between the
two. Thus it is usually the poorer mem
bcrs of the community who do the actual
work. Whatever they make out of it
they sorely need, and if the industry died
out entirely one frail barrier of the few
which the Munster and Connaught peas
ant can erect against periodical famine
would disappear.