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THOROUGH-PIN. 
which no quack or unscientific or inexperienced 
person should dare to touch. One analyst found, 
in 178 parts of it, 58 of gummy extractive, 6 of 
extractive, 64 of chlorophylle, 15 of albumen, 12 
of resin, and 23 of phosphate of lime and mag- 
| nesia; and other analysts have found in the seeds 
a peculiar, narcotic, alkaline principle, called 
daturine, which exists in combination with malic 
_ acid, and which, when separated, crystallizes 
with difficulty, and is nearly insoluble in water, 
| and forms neutral salts with most acids. 
THOROUGH-DRAINING. See Drarnine. 
THOROUGH-PIN. A bursal enlargement in 
| the horse’s hock, similar in nature to bog-spavin. 
|| When the tumour is pressed on one side, the 
fluid within is forced to the opposite side; and 
hence the fantastic name thorough-pin. When 
the disease causes lameness, it may require to be 
attacked by blistering or firing; but it seldom 
does this, and may in general be best let alone. 
THOROUGH-WAX. The round-leaved hare’s- 
ear. See the article Harz’s-Ear. 
THORTER-ILL. See Loverne-Iu. 
THRASHING. The operation or process of 
separating the seed from the stems of corn, pulse, 
oleiferous seed plants, and all similar crops. The 
place on which the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the 
Romans, and other ancient nations adjacent to 
the Mediterranean performed this operation, was 
not the floor of a barn or of any other building 
or enclosure, but an open circular area in an 
elevated part of a field or on the tabular summit 
of a mount or hillock, levelled and beaten firm, 
and commonly about 30 or 40 paces in diameter. 
The thrashing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite— 
incomparably more remarkable in its associations 
than all other recorded thrashing-floors what- 
ever, and most gloriously signalized as part of the 
site on which Solomon afterwards built the Tem- 
ple of the true Deity—seems to have been simply 
a large esplanade on the broad and flattened top 
of Mount Moriah. All thrashing-floors required 
to slope slightly from the centre to the circum- 
ference, and to have a very smooth and perfectly 
firm surface; and they were variously formed 
by levelling rock, by laying pavement, by com- 
pacting clay, or by depositing some sort of mor- 
tary compound, according to the nature of the 
situation, and character of the soil. “Make a 
thrashing-floor in this manner,” says Cato in re- 
ference to any ordinary kind of ground: “dig 
the soil, and sprinkle it with amurca, and allow 
the amurca to be imbibed; then pulverize every 
bit of hard earth, and smoothen all the surface, 
and work it hard with beaters; and afterwards 
sprinkle it again with amurca, and allow it to 
dry; and if the thrashing-floor be thus made, 
ants will not hurt it, nor will herbs grow upon 
it.” Other Roman writers recommended that 
the thrashing-floor should be so situated as to be 
easily observable by the landlord or by the stew- 
ard,—that it should be on high ground and much 
es to the wind, in order that it might 
IV. 
THRASHING. 
naturally be maintained sweet and clean,—that 
it should be distant from gardens, orchards, 
vineyards, and groves, so as not to become de- 
fouled by their fallen foliage,—that it should be 
raised in the middle, in order that rain might 
readily drain away from it,—and that it should 
have a circular outline, so as both to economize 
space and to afford the most convenient scope for 
thrashing action by either oxen or implements. 
Some thrashing-floors, in wet climates, had roof- 
coverings, to shelter them from rain; others, in 
hot climates, had awning-coverings, to shelter 
them from the heat of sunshine; and others, in 
pastoral districts, were encompassed with a stone 
wall, to protect them from trespass by animals. 
In some instances, the workmen reposed on the 
awning-sheltered thrashing-floors during the 
heat of the day ; and in not a few—as in that of 
Boaz, recorded in the book of Ruth—the pro- 
prietors or others slept on them during the night. 
The several varieties of thrashing-floor now used 
in the barns of Britain are noticed in the article 
Barn. 
The operation of thrashing, in warm and dry 
countries, where seeds have a comparatively 
slight adherence to their envelopes, is much 
easier than in cold and wet countries, and re- 
quires a correspondingly facile class of appliances. 
In the earlier periods of the Hebrew common- 
wealth, a mere rod or cudgel seems to have been 
the ordinary thrashing implement, and perhaps 
the only one; but in the more advanced periods 
of that commonwealth, as well as among con- 
temporary nations of the East, and among some 
later nations of Southern Europe, the treading 
of oxen and the action of several kinds of toothed 
and wheeled machines were used for most large 
crops or large quantities, and the rod or cudgel 
reserved only for small kinds of grain or for small 
quantities. One Jewish thrashing-implement, 
called baerkanim, is obscurely known, but seems 
to have been a square piece of wood, armed on 
the lower side with sharp stones ; another, called 
morag, comprised four beams so joined as to 
form a square, and had three revolving cylinders 
set between the beams, and each furnished with 
three iron wheels, having teeth like those of a 
saw; and a third, called harootz, was formed 
like the second, except that the cylinders, instead 
of having iron saw-toothed wheels, were furnished 
with sharp pieces of iron, six inches long and 
three broad. The Jews, when obedient to the 
Divine law, “did not muzzle the ox that trod 
out the corn ;” but the ancient Greeks, according 
to Allian, besmeared the mouth of the poor ani- 
mal with dung, in order to prevent it from eating. 
The Jews, so far as we know, may have used 
oxen both to tread out the corn by walking 
loosely over it, and to draw the heavy varieties 
of their thrashing implements; the ancient 
Greeks appear to have used chiefly the loose 
treading of oxen; and the ancient Romans, as 
well as the more polished of the nations who 
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