Dr. Hayes, in the course of his “Arctic Boat Journey,” was compelled to have recourse to the same unsatisfactory fare. The rock-lichen, or stone-moss, as he calls it, he describes as about an inch in diameter at its maximum growth, and of the thickness of a wafer. It is black externally, but when broken the interior appears white. When boiled it makes a glutinous fluid, which is slightly nutritious.
“Although in some places it grows very abundantly,” writes Dr. Hayes, “yet in one locality it, like the game, was scarce. Most of the rocks had none upon them; and there were very few from which we could collect as much as a quart. The difficulty of gathering it was much augmented by its crispness, and the firmness of its attachment.
“For this plant, poor though it was, we were compelled to dig. The rocks in every case were to be cleared from snow, and often our pains went unrewarded. The first time this food was tried it seemed to answer well,—it at least filled the stomach, and thus kept off the horrid sensation of hunger until we got to sleep; but it was found to produce afterwards a painful diarrhœa. Besides this unpleasant effect, fragments of gravel, which were mixed with the moss, tried our teeth. We picked the plants from the rock with our knives, or a piece of hoop-iron; and we could not avoid breaking off some particles of the stone.”
These lichens are black and leather-like, studded with small black points like “coiled wire buttons,” and attached either by an umbilical root or by short and tenacious fibres to the rocks. Some of them may be compared to a piece of shagreen, while others resemble a fragment of burned skin. They are met with in cold bleak localities, on Alpine heights of granite or micaceous schist, in almost all parts of the world,—on the Scottish mountains, on the Andes, on the Himalayas; but it is in the Polar World that they most abound, spreading over the surface of every rock a sombre Plutonian vegetation, that seems to have been scathed by fire and flame, until all its beauty and richness were shrivelled up.
Some of the lichens in the less remote latitudes—as, for instance, in Sweden—are far superior in usefulness to any of those we have hitherto described. The Swedish peasant finds in them his pharmacy, his dyeing materials, his food. With the various lichens that grow upon the trees and rocks, says Frederika Bremer, he cures the virulent diseases which sometimes afflict him, dyes the articles of clothing which he wears, and poisons the noxious and dangerous animals which annoy him. The juniper and cranberry give him their berries, which he brews into drink; he makes a conserve of them, and mixes their juices with his dry salt-meat, and is healthful and cheerful with these and with his labour, of which he makes a pleasure.
The only lichen which has retained its place in modern pharmacy is the well-known “Iceland moss.” It is still employed as a tonic and febrifuge in ague; but more largely, when added to soups and chocolate, as an article of diet for the feeble and consumptive. In Iceland the Cetraria Islandica is highly valued by the inhabitants. What barley, rye, and oats are to the Indo-Caucasian races of Asia and Western Europe; the olive, the fig, and the grape to the inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin; rice to the Hindu; the tea-plant to the native of the Flowery Land; and the date palm to the Arab,—is Iceland moss to the Icelander, the Lapp, and the Eskimo.
It is found on some of the loftiest peaks of the Scottish Highlands; but in Iceland it overspreads the whole country, flourishing more abundantly and attaining to a larger growth on the volcanic soil of the western coast than elsewhere. It is collected triennially, for it requires three years to reach maturity, after the spots where it thrives have been cleared. We are told that the meal obtained from it, when mixed with wheat-flour, produces a greater quantity, though perhaps a less nutritious quality, of bread than can be manufactured from wheat-flour alone. The great objection to it is its bitterness, arising from its peculiar astringent principle, cetraria. However, the Lapps and Icelanders remove this disagreeable pungency by a simple process. They chop the lichen to pieces, and macerate it for several days in water mixed with salt of tartar or quicklime, which it absorbs very readily; next they dry it, and pulverize it; then, mixed with the flour of the common knot-grass, it is made into a cake, or boiled, and eaten with reindeer’s milk.
Mosses are abundant in the Arctic Regions, increasing in number and beauty as we approach the Pole, and covering the desert land with a thin veil of verdure, which refreshes the eye and gladdens the heard of the traveller. On the hills of Lapland and Greenland, they are extensively distributed; and the landscape owes most of its interest to the charming contrasts they afford. Of all the genera, perhaps the bog-mosses, Sphagna, are the most luxuriant; but at the same time they are the least attractive, and the plains which they cover are even drearier than the naked rock. In Melville Island these mosses form upwards of a fourth part of the whole flora. Much finer to the sight is the common hair-moss (Polytrichum commune), which extends over the levels of Lapland, and is used by the Lapps, when they are bound on long journeys, for a temporary couch. We may mention also the fork-moss (Dieranum), which the Eskimos twist into wicks for their rude lamps.