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clear up the difficulties of practice and chemistry, even when 
associated for years, where other influences, and especially 
that life, prevails. 
I might at this point advert to plans and patents that have 
been taken up by individuals to obtain results more or less 
connected with the principles of chemistry, or the labour and 
capital involved in the full working of Retteries on the plan 
of Schenck. Having submitted to you samples of the old 
plans and of the new, I have now the last new process 
patented by Watt, of Glasgow, carried out by Messrs. I. 
Leadbetter and Co., at Belfast, and the Croy Mills, near 
Glasgow, and which offers such efficiency that it may 
well demand attention. The whole plan seems simple in 
theory and inexpensive in practice, easily arranged and kept 
in order, apparently economical, and the results peculiar 
and successful. Here the flax straw, previously divested of 
seed, is placed in an iron box or chamber, made tight ; on 
the top or lid is a cistern of cold water, and inside is a false 
iron bottom perforated, and about a foot above the real 
bottom of the chamber or cistern. On this the flax bundles 
are placed. Steam at low pressure is then thrown into the 
box by means of a pipe round the inside and beneath the 
shelf of the box. The first operation of the steam is to evolve 
and distil away the oily and fatty matters of the plant, pene- 
trating and raising the temperature of the mass of the flax 
plant. As the steam rises to the top of the box, it is con- 
densed and falls as pure water, which passes through, and 
saturating the softened plants, dissolves out all the soluble 
matters, which trickle through to the apertures of the false 
support, and the solution is collected. Steam continues to be 
admitted, to condense into rain, constantly washing with 
pure water the plants, and from time to time the extracted 
matter is run off by means of a pump ; the early portions 
affording a strong mucilaginous mixture, available for feeding. 
