Common Ores Would Be Here Of No Great Value; For
What Requires To Be Separated By Fire, Must, If It Were Found, Be
Carried Away In Its Mineral State, Here Being No Fewel For The
Smelting-House Or Forge.
Perhaps by diligent search in this world
of stone, some valuable species of marble might be discovered.
But
neither philosophical curiosity, nor commercial industry, have yet
fixed their abode here, where the importunity of immediate want
supplied but for the day, and craving on the morrow, has left
little room for excursive knowledge or the pleasing fancies of
distant profit.
They have lately found a manufacture considerably lucrative. Their
rocks abound with kelp, a sea-plant, of which the ashes are melted
into glass. They burn kelp in great quantities, and then send it
away in ships, which come regularly to purchase them. This new
source of riches has raised the rents of many maritime farms; but
the tenants pay, like all other tenants, the additional rent with
great unwillingness; because they consider the profits of the kelp
as the mere product of personal labour, to which the landlord
contributes nothing. However, as any man may be said to give, what
he gives the power of gaining, he has certainly as much right to
profit from the price of kelp as of any thing else found or raised
upon his ground.
This new trade has excited a long and eager litigation between
Macdonald and Macleod, for a ledge of rocks, which, till the value
of kelp was known, neither of them desired the reputation of
possessing.
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