[838] Probably the Arundo donax of modern botanists. See B. xvi. c. 66.
[839] Fée says, that the people of Pisa, at the present day, soak the stalks of broom, and extract therefrom a thread, of which cords and coarse stuffs are made.
[840] In B. xii. c. 21. He seems there to speak of the cotton-tree, though Fée suggests that he may possibly allude to the “Bombax pentandrum” of Linnæus.
[841] It is the mucilage of the perisperm that is so useful in medicine. As an article of food, the farina of linseed is held in no esteem whatever. In times of scarcity, attempts have been made to mix it with flour or meal, but the result has been found to be heavy and indigestible, and has caused, it is said, the death even of those who have eaten of it in considerable quantities.
[842] There are various other methods employed of dressing flax at the present day; but they are all of them long and tedious.
[843] And not feminine or servile.
[844] “Vivum.”
[845] He evidently considers asbestus, or amianthus, to be a vegetable, and not a mineral production. It is, in reality, a mineral, with long flexible filaments, of a silky appearance, and is composed of silica, magnesia, and lime. The wicks of the inextinguishable lamps of the middle ages, the existence of which was an article of general belief, were said to be made of asbestus. Paper and lace, even, have been made of it in modern times.
[846] “Nascitur.” In the year 1702 there was found near the Nævian Gate, at Rome, a funereal urn, in which there was a skull, calcined bones, and other ashes, enclosed in a cloth of asbestus, of a marvellous length. It is still preserved in the Vatican.
[847] On the contrary, it is found in the Higher Alps in the vicinity of the Glaciers, in Scotland, and in Siberia, even.