( 
|| large a capacity as to contain 150 men. 
i] 
————— 
470 BOLTING. 
oloracea into heads. The principal varieties 
which boll are savoys and all the common kinds 
of cabbage. Bolling is often called by the Eng- 
lish cabbaging, and corruptedly by the Scotch 
booing. 
BOLTING. The separating of flour or meal 
from husks or bran, by a process of sifting. A 
framed sieve, with a bottom of linen-cloth, hair- 
cloth, or fine wirework, is employed for the pro- 
cess, and called a bolter; and a mill or machine, 
enclosing the bolter, and having a high degree of 
lateral or circular motion, is called a bolting- 
mill. The cloth for the sieveis made of different 
degrees of fineness, and designated by numbers to 
express its comparative quality. Bolters which 
can be worked by the hand are used by bakers ; 
but large ones, kept in motion by the common 
moving-power of the mill, are used by millers. 
A hand-bolting-machine is in’ much use, consist- 
ing of a half cylinder of wire, with cross brushes 
enclosed in a box, and costs from three to five 
guineas. 
BOLUS. See Batt. 
BOMBAX,— popularly Sik-Cotton-Tree. A 
genus of evergreen, tropical timber trees, forming 
the type of the order Bombacew. This order com- 
prises the genera adansonia, eriodendron, bom- 
bax, ochroma, durio, helicteres, plagianthus, car- 
olinea, montezuma, cheirostemon, and myrodia. 
Most of the species are fine lofty trees, with 
large showy flowers ; and ‘some of them are 
among the bulkiest and most imposing trees in 
the world. Yet the bombacez, notwithstanding 
their dendritic character and their general stu- 
pendousness and magnificence, were formerly in- 
cluded in the prevailingly herbaceous order of 
Malvacee, and are botanically distinguishable 
from the plants of that order only by an imbri- 
cate construction of their calyces, and by the 
collocation of their stamens into five sets or 
brotherhoods. The flowers of some are very large 
and gorgeous; the timber of all is light and soft, 
and fit chiefly for the construction of canoes; and 
the medical properties of any seem to be quite or 
nearly the same as those of the mallow-plants. 
About thirty of the species are grown in the hot- 
houses of Great Britain. 
Two of the best known species of silk-cotton- 
tree are Dombax ceiba, or Bombax quinatum, and 
Bombax pentandrum, or Hriodendron anfractuo- 
sum. The former of these was introduced to 
Great Britain from South America in 1692, and 
the latter from the Hast Indies in 1739 ; and both 
usually grow te the height of about 100 feet, but 
sometimes attain a height of about 150 feet, and 
are the tallest and bulkiest specimens of the 
genus. Their trunks are so vast as, when scoop- 
ed out, to make very large canoes. On occasion 
of the first voyage of Columbus, a canoe, made of 
‘the hollewed trunk of one of these trees, was 
seen at the island of Cuba, ninety-five palms in 
| length, of proportionally great breadth, and of so 
“ Some 
BONDUC. 
modern writers,” says Miller, “have affirmed 
that there are trees of these sorts, now growing 
in the West Indies, so large as not to be fathom- 
ed by 16 men, and so tall as that an arrow can- 
not be shot to their top.” The stems of both 
species are very straight ; but those of the one 
are closely armed with short strong spines ; and 
those of the other are perfectly smooth, and pass, 
at successive ages of their existence, from a 
bright green colour, to a grey, an ash-colour, and 
a brown. Side branches seldom grow from either |. 
till it has acquired a considerable height; and | 
only the tops of the branches are garnished with 
foliage. The leaves of both species are digitate, 
each consisting of five, seven, or nine small, 
smooth, oblong, spear-shaped leaflets, joined to 
one centre at their base, and there adhering to a 
long footstalk. The trees, however, are ever- 
green in only a modified sense, shedding their 
leaves annually, and being for some time destitute 
of foliage; but before the new leaves come out, 
the flower-buds appear at the ends of the branches; 
and, soon after, they expand. Lach flower has 
five oblong petals, which are white in the ceiba 
and scarlet in the pentandrum; and the fruit is 
as large as a swan’s egg, has a thick ligneous 
covering, opens when ripe into five parts, and is 
full of a dark short cotton, enclosing numerous 
roundish seeds about the size of pease. The cot- 
ton is used by the poorer inhabitants of the tro- 
pics for stuffing chairs and pillows, but is sup- 
posed to give off unwholesome effluvia; the seeds | 
are said to be eaten by the inhabitants of the 
island of Celebes ; a solution of the gum, in con- 
junction with spices, is medicinally administered 
in certain stages of bowel complaints; and the 
wood is used by the Mootchie men for making 
rafts——The species which have been introduced 
to the hothouses of Great Britain are B. malabar- | 
wcum, or heptaphyllum, from Malabar ; B. globosum, 
from Guiana; B. septenatum, from Carthage ; B. 
ceiba or quinatum, from South America; JB. eri- 
anthos, or Eriodendron leiantherum, from Brazil ; 
B. pentandrum, or Eriodendron anfractuosum, 
from the Hast Indies; B. gossypium, or B. grandi- 
florum, or Cochlospermum gossypium, from the 
Hast Indies; and 3. vitifolium, or Cochlospermum 
serratifolvum, from Mexico. 
BONDAGHR. A day-labourer or field-worker | 
ona farm. The designation seems to have arisen 
during the feudal period, and has been perpetu- 
ated in consequence of every first class plough- 
man being bound to provide a day-labourer ; but 
it is now a mere nickname, or epithet of degra- 
dation ; and it ought to be discontinued. Most 
of the labourers usually designated bondagers are 
women. See the article Farm-Lasournrs. 
BONDUC, or Nicxer-TreE,—botanically Gui- 
landina. A genus of shrubs or small trees of the 
pea tribe. Seven species are known to botanists; 
and two of these, both ornamental, evergreen 
shrubs, were long ago introduced from India to 
the hothouses of Great Britain. The greater 
