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OF FOREST-TREES. 113 



and the ground and basis of several dyes, especially sadder colours, and cHAP. 

 are a great revenue to those who have quantities of them. Nor must 

 I forget ink, composed of galls | iiij, copperas ^ ij, gum arable ^ i; beat 

 the galls gross, and put them into a quart of claret or French wine, and 

 let them soak for eight or nine days, setting the vessel (an earthen glazed 

 pitcher is best) in the hot sun, if in summer, but in winter near the fire, 

 stirring it frequently with a wooden spatula ; then add the copperas and 

 gum ; and after it has stood a day or two it will be fit to use. There are 

 a world of receipts more, of which see Caneparius de Atramentis. — 

 Of the very moss of the Oak, that which is white composes the choicest 

 cypress-powder, which is esteemed good for the head ; but impostors 

 familiarly vend other mosses under that name, as they do the fungi 

 (excellent in hajmorrhages and fluxes) for the true agaric, to the great 

 scandal of physic. Young red oaken leaves, decocted in wine, make 

 an excellent gargle for a sore mouth ; and almost every part of this 

 tree is sovereign against fluxes in general, and where astringents are 

 proper. The dew that impearls the leaves in May, insolated, meteorizes, 

 and sends up a liquor which is of admirable effect in ruptures. The 

 liquor issuing out between the bark, which looks like treacle, has many 

 sovereign virtues. And some affirm the water stagnate in the hollow 

 stump of a newly-felled Oak is as effectual as lignum sanctum in the 

 foul disease, and also stops a diarrhoea. A water distilled from the acorns^ 

 is good against the phthisic and stitch in the side ; it heals inward ulcers ; 

 breaks the stone, and refrigerates inflammations, being applied with linen 

 dipt therein : Nay, the acorns themselves, eaten fasting, kill the worms, 

 provoke urine, and, some affirm, break even the stone itself. The coals 

 of Oak, beaten and mingled with honey, cure the carbuncle. We shall 

 say nothing of the viscuses, polypods, and other excrescences, of which 

 innumerable remedies are composed, noble antidotes, syrups, &c. — 

 Nay, it is reported, that the very shade of this tree is so wholesome, that 

 the sleeping, or lying under it, becomes a present remedy to paralytics, 

 and recovers those whom the mistaken malign influence of the Walnut- 

 tree has smitten But what is still more strange, I read in one Paulus, 



The ancients, who were fond of refreshing themselves under the shade of trees, caution 

 us against the influence of the Walnut. Pliny says of its shade, " gravis et noxia, etiam 

 capiti humano, omnibusque juxta satis." Lib. xvii. c. xviii. 

 Volume I, Y 



