.- USE OF LINSEED. 97 



stout oak, twenty feet high, or a trifle more, perhaps ; 

 for it reaches almost to the very top of the mill. The 

 end of the pestle is shod with a piece of iron, channelled 

 and cut in the way to make it act most efficiently upon 

 the seed. The pestles have been compared to frightful 

 molar teeth, each with a single ugly, endless fang. Motion 

 is communicated to the entire set by very inartificial 

 means, and each tooth can chew its portion indepen- 

 dently of the rest. A catch on the axle of the mill-sails 

 just lifts them up and lets them drop again ; and there 

 is a contrivance by which the progress of the labour of 

 every individual pestle can be stopped, or re-continued, 

 at pleasure. Suppose the miller has given the usual 

 quantity of seed to one of these pestles and mortars to 

 pound ; the pounding goes on till the whole contents of 

 the mortar are reduced to a pasty mass, called marc. 

 That special pestle is then stopped for a while. The 

 miller takes away the portion thus prepared, carries it 

 into a small adjoining apartment, and with it fills some 

 small woollen sacks, or bags, made of a coarse stuff which 

 is known as morftl. A sample of foreign oil-cake shows 

 the actual size of the morftl sack, as well as the impres- 

 sion of the texture of the material of which it is made. 

 The sack thus filled is wrapped in a leathern case, which 

 covers both the sides but is open at the edges. To uso 

 a familiar illustration, the sack exactly occupies the place 

 which would be filled by a slice of tongue in a sandwich. 

 To the left of the pounding-pestles two others are ob- 

 served, somewhat slenderer, but of equal length with 

 those that pound. Beneath them is a box, or oblong 

 hole. This hole is filled with marc-and-inorfil sandwiches, 

 set upright, like books on a book-shelf. The miller has 

 at hand a variety of wedges, of long rather than stout 

 proportions. He inserts the point of one of these into 

 the midst of his packet of sandwiches, and then sets the 

 pestle overhead in motion. The pounding then begins 

 again, very much like a pile-driving machine, only more 

 rapidly. The wedge at last is driven home to its very 

 head ; and then, another ; till the miller thinks that he 



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