They sprinkle the Olives with warm water, and by pressing them a-new, and still the more, there comes a good Oil from them.
This done, they stir the Olives again, and sprinkle them with hot Water, from which, thus order’d, there proceeds another Oil full of Dregs, and not so good as the rest.
These Oils are easily separated from the Water, because they swim a top, but they find a Kind of Lees to the Bottom, which the Ancients called Amurca.
Those Olives of which you design to make Oil, must ripen ’till they are even rotten; and the Reason is, because the sulphurous Parts in them have had Time to disengage themselves from those gross Principles, which before fix’d them, which we know by the sweetish and oily Taste that then they had. They also let them ferment for some time before they press them, that so those sulphurous Parts may free themselves, and be more fully separated from the watry and saline Parts, with which they were united in the Fruits. Here it is to be observ’d that you cannot extract a Drop of Oil from green olives, but only a viscous Juice, because their oily Principles are very strictly united with their other Principles.
The Leaves of the Olive-Tree are astringent, and fit for to stop the Bleeding of the Nose, and Looseness.
There are certain wild Olive-Trees that grow near the Red-Sea, from which there sweats out a Gum that stops Blood, and cures Wounds.
The Olive-Tree in Latin called Olea, comes from the Greek Word elaia which also signifies the same Thing.”
A later work, “The Lady’s Assistant” published in 1778, gives a much better idea of how little they were used at that time in England.
OLIVES
“OLIVES are the fruits of trees, which grow wild in the warmer parts of Europe; we have them in some of our gardens; but with us they will not ripen to any perfection.