150 



POPULAR ECONOMIC BOTANY. 



operation its colour is much improved^ it becomes dry, and 

 is then ready for the scutching or bruising-mill, where it is 

 beaten, to complete the separation of the fibres, which are 

 then drawn through the heckling or combing apparatus; 

 this combs out the flax and renders it fit for the manu- 

 facturer. 



Other methods have been devised for rendering flax fit for 

 use in less time ; thus, about twenty-five years since. Parlia- 

 ment granted a secret or unenrolled patent to Mr. Lee for a 

 method of steeping in hot water and softsoap, by which the 

 fibre was said to be separated in the very short space of two 

 or three hours ; a process, lately brought into use, invented 

 by M. Schenck, in which hot water is used for steeping, 

 prepares the fibre in sixty hours; and a very ingenious 

 method, invented by the Chevalier Claussen, by which the 

 flax-fibre is reduced to the condition of cotton- wool, both in 

 colour and fineness and in shortness of fibre. It is said 

 that this patent process consists in soaking the flax in a hot 

 solution of carbonate of soda, and afterwards dipping it in a 

 weak acid solution; the disengagement of carbonic acid 

 which takes place all through the texture of the flax breaks 

 the fibrous tissue into its most minute divisions, in which 

 state it is the flax-cotton. This article is* said to work up 



