Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1884 — Seaweed and Its Uses. [ARTICLE]

Seaweed and Its Uses.

In tropical climates the little air bladders which support the seawracks are of great service; for the masses of seaweed are several hundred feet long and of considerable height, having stems the thickness of a man’s thigh, and branches and drooping stems which support innumerable forms of animal life, such as corals, crabs, worms of different kinds, together with mosses and weeds of the sea, and being besides a place of deposit for innumerable eggs of various creatures. In Scotland the tender parts of the seawracks, known as tangles, are used as food, and when cooked are considerd choice diet for cattle. The stems of a very hard, horny variety of the seawracks are used as knife handles. They are cut in short pieces, and while still moist or green, the blade is forced in at one end. When the stem dries it clings firmly to the knife-blade. Being gnarled and horny it resembles buck’s horn, and when tipped with metal and fully finished, forms a neat, inexpensive knife-handle. The rose-tangles are higher up in the scale of vegetable life, and their delicate tints render them very beautiful. Of these, pulse is an important variety to the Scotch and Irish, who, besides using it as food, both in its raw state and cooked in milk, find in it a substitute for tobacco. Carrageen moss is another kind of rose-tangle, from which a nourishing jelly is made. The Chinese use one variety of rose-tangle as a chief ingredient in other glossing preparations; twenty-seven thousand pounds are brought annually to Canton and sold at from 6 to 18 pence per pound.