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of it ; and the effluvia of it may perhaps be nearly 

 as infcdious as it is offcnfive. If this effluvia be 

 really attended with any contagious efFeds in our 

 cold climates, a thing worth the enquiring into, 

 how much more pernicious muft its efFeds have 

 been in the hot climate of Egypt, a country early 

 noted for its great cultivation of flax. 



I have often thought that the procefs of watering 

 might be greatly improved and Ihortened by plun*. 

 ging the new flax, after it is rippled, into fcalding 

 water, which, in regard to extrading the vegeta- 

 tive fap, would do in five minutes more than cold 

 water would do in a fortnight; or perhaps more 

 than cold water could do at all, in refped to the 

 clearing the plant of that fap. Rough almonds, 

 when thrown into fcalding water, are blanched in 

 an infl:ant; but perhaps a fortnight's macerating 

 thofe almonds in cold water would not make them 

 part fo eafily with their flcins, which are the fame 

 to them, as the harle is to the flax. Were tea- 

 leaves to be infufed in cold water a fortnight, per- 

 haps the tea produced by that infufion would not 

 be fo good to the tafte, nor fo fl:rongly tinged to 

 the eye, as what is effected by fcalding water in 

 five minutes. By the fame analogy, I think flax, 

 or any fmall twig, would be made to part with its 

 bark much eafier and quicker by being dipped in 



boiling 



