23a N A T U R A L H I S T O R Y
iflands of Scllly the fheep arid black cattle feed, upon fearWtafck,
efpecially when the other pastures fail ;:s’sndc> this they do, eating
the plant in its’ falteft ftate from the rock whereon it-.grows,-when
the ebbing tide has but juft left it. j,That-bprfes too-,will feed-on
it, with a little precaution, Plutarchp relates,, 0S&1 when Gaefar
folfowed. Cato Africa,;. his-foldiers, were
forced togive the Mga on .the fea-fhore to their-horfes, having firft
wafhed off the brackifhnefs by. frefh water, and mixed it with a
little herb called Dog’s-tooth. In the iflands of ScilLy^i o f thé Alga.
they make kelp, a kind of imperfect vitrification of the . fait, oil;
and earth ofothis plant burnt together: they fend it to Briftol to
the glafe-manufaéturers; and in a fair dry fummer, this article has
been worth five hundred pounds to the Iflands s but the moft tg©?
peral ufe is for manuring the land; and there being fo much fea-i
fhore on the edges of Cornwall, this plairtrofiersjiltfelf fo cohvem--
ently, and in fo many places after hard winds, that fcarce. any
induftrious farmer can want dreffing fbr his landjes
sect. x. I From the herbaceous, let us defcend to thef ligneous or horny
ligneous fobmarines, of which our fhores (not having been fufficiently ex-
amined) are thought to be deftitute; but the waited fek-fan; Plate
xxiv. Fig. i. is a fiiffident inftance that fuch plants are natives óf
the Cornifh fhores, and are not to be rafhly pronounced of foreign
growth. It grew upon Pednankarn rock, twQ miles fouth-eaft of
Moufhole pier iff Mount’s-Bay, in twenty-fix'! fathom of water,
whence it was plucked off by Andrew Harvey o f Newlyn, fifher-
man, by his fifhing-hook, in the year 1750^ it meafures fourteen
inches wide by twelve high, and, as I am informed, .has been found
much larger in the fame bay. It is the warted fea-fan o f Mr. Ellis
Hift. of Corallines, Plate xxvn, N°. t. the ‘Keratophytan'fiabetti-
Jorme cortice verrucofö obduElum
The flabellum veneris has been found on the fhores. of Mount’s
Bay after a ftorm, but whether from a wrecked veflel, or tom
off by the violence of the waves from fome rock in the Bay, is not
to be afferted positively; that we have plants of the fame ligneous
fubftance, and the fame coralloid covering'which incrufts all
its branches, cannot be doubted.
s e c t . xi. The ftony fubmarines are either corallines, (fometimes called
stony fab- Coralline moflesj coralloids, or corals. There is a great variety of
Corallines, corallines on the Cornifh fhore, moft of which, at prefènt known,
the ingenious Mr. Ellis before-mentioned, F. R. S. has taken care
t In C$fare.
* Obfervatibns on ScilLy Iflands.
s See before of manures, page 86.
f Ray, 3d'edit, page 32,
to