Stránka:book 1922.djvu/277

Health and Woodland Medicine 247 crumbs, and, of course, was easily chewed. While roasting it gave ofi a smell, like seaweed. Rock-tnpe. But the la=t, the rock-tripe or famine-food of the Indians, has proved the most satisfactory of all the starvation foods that I have experimented with. Every one knows it as the fiat leathery crinkle-edged lichen that G. Muhl. Rock-tripes. grows on rocks. It is blackish and brittle in dry weather, but dull dark greenish on the upper side in wet. It is largely composed of nutritious matter that can be assimi- lated by the human stomach. Unfortunately it is also a powerful purge, unless dried before being boiled, as food. Specimens gathered from the rocks in Connecticut — it is very widely distributed even in New England — after dry- ing and two or three hours boiling, produced a thick muci- laginous liquid and a granular mass of solid jelly, that were