54 
mr. Norton’s letters.—no. 2 . 
of shipping. The crates are about twelve feet long, 
eight wide, and three deep. They are simply con¬ 
structed, and made of common poles. One of my 
men, Savine Fieuss, was' a joint owner of thirty- 
five. He says that farmers send their flax as far as 
forty miles by land to be steeped ; some, by water, 
from Holland, even much longer distances. The 
sheaves, tied with double, and often with triple 
bands, are placed erect in the crates. The root- 
ends of one-half of a sheaf are tied to the boll- 
ends of the other, in order to make the bundle even 
and convenient for stowage in the crate, which, 
when filled, is floated into deep water, and sunk 
with stones to about six inches below the surface. 
After a short time some of the stones are removed 
to prevent the crate from touching the bottom of 
the river. 
Bundles of Flax Draining.—Fig. 10. 
When ready to be removed, the bundles are 
placed upon the bank, a few hours, to drain. After¬ 
wards they are untied, and formed into what are 
called caps, not unlike soldiers’ tents. The rapidity 
with which this operation is performed is perfectly 
astonishing; for in a few minutes a whole field 
will assume the appearance of a Lilliputian camp. 
By this means the stalks are quickly dried, col¬ 
lected into bundles, and sent home. Where the 
process of bleaching or grassing is conducted by 
the owner at his leisure—that is to say, if not con¬ 
venient to prepare the flax for market immediately, 
—it is carefully stacked till the following spring, 
a. delay that considerably enhances its value, par¬ 
ticularly with respect to color On these accounts 
the system of sleeping flax one year and of grassing 
it the next, is now extensively adopted in those 
parts. I had some flax steeped in water, approved 
by the Belgians, several miles from my own house, 
according to the above plan ; and found in this, as 
in every other department, the superiority of their 
practice .—Condensed from Warnes’ Treatise. 
Test for Copper in Food or Confectionery.-— 
Pour over the substance to be tested a small quan¬ 
tity of liquid ammonia (hartshorn water), and if 
copper be present it will speedily acquire a bluish 
tint 
To Revive Old Writing.— Boil nut-galls in 
wine, and with a sponge wash over the writing to 
be restored and copy immediately, as the paper will 
soon decay. 
Jitr. Norton’s betters.—No. 2. 
Since my last letter to you, I have hastily passed 
over a large portion of England and Scotland, 
besides portions of Belgium and Holland. One of 
the most interesting day’s travel I have had, was 
from London to Dover, a distance of 87 miles, 
through one of the most beautiful-parts of England ; 
each turn, and each embankment of the railway, 
opens some delightful landscape. I was accom¬ 
panied by Professor Johnston, and derived much in¬ 
struction from his knowledge of the general features 
and geological formations of the country. 
For nearly 20 miles after leaving London, we 
were -upon the London and plastic clays. The 
London is an exceedingly stiff, dark-colored clay, 
i forming beds of from 200 to 500 feet in thickness, 
over a large part of several counties. It forms an 
extremely difficult soil to cultivate, and hence a very 
considerable portion of it is left in permanent pas¬ 
ture ; in some places very fine, in others cold and 
wet. Thorough draining and judicious manage¬ 
ment cause it to produce remarkably fine crops of 
wheat and beans; and where sand can be procured, 
it is converted into a fertile loam of excellent 
quality. 
The plastic clay is under the London clay, and 
comes up all around it, having a thickness of from 
300 to 400 feet. It consists of alternating beds of 
clay and sand. This structure of the formation 
causes it to present soils of entirely diverse quali¬ 
ties, as the different beds of clay and sand come to 
the surface, and this often within a very short dis¬ 
tance. Neither of these clays can, as a whole, be 
described as well cultivated. The fields are in a 
majority of cases wet or ill-drained, and the grass, 
therefore, not so fine as it ought to lie. Where the 
soil is well cultivated, and thoroughly dried, the 
crops are remarkably fine. Draining is progressing 
quite fast.. We saw many fields undergoing the 
process in a thorough and complete manner. The 
small pipe tile, having a bore from one to one and 
a half inches in diameter, for the ordinary drains, 
seems entirely to have superseded all- other kinds. 
Of course the diameter of the bore is greater for the 
leading drains. 
These stiff clayey soils are difficult to manage, but 
are of great strength, and when judiciously treated, 
are productive, being deep and almost inexhausti¬ 
ble. They belong to what are called by geologists, 
the tertiary strata, characterized according to Pro¬ 
fessor Johnston, by containing among other fossils, 
the remains of animals identical with existing 
species. 
Just before reaching Reigate, we crossed a narrow 
belt of the chalk formation, belonging to the 
secondary strata, which contain no animal remains 
that can be identified with existing species. The 
chalk covers a very large area in the south-eastern 
part of the island of Great Britain, being in thick¬ 
ness about 600 feet. Some parts of it contain 
layers of flint, especially the upper beds; and in 
many places, beds of marl (chalk-marl) occur. 
The different layers of chalk produce somewhat 
different soils, but the general nature of them is the 
same. The upper chalk, however, is generally the 
poorest, and in many places, the chalk for the 
1 lower beds is applied'on the upper with very great 
