Page 140 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

RE DING LESSONS. 139
spring, and the blossoms in autumn. It abounds in the neighbourhood of Sa ron Walden, in Essex, which takes its name om that circumstance. The owers are gathered every morning just be re they expand ; and as they continue to open in succession r sev­ eral weeks, the sa ron harvest lasts a considerable time. When the owers are gathered, they are spread on a table : the upper part of the pistil only is of any value. When a su cient quantity of these
are collected, they are dried upon a kind of portable kiln ; over this a hair-cloth is stretched, and upon it a w sheets of white paper; the sa ron is placed upon these to the thickness of two or three inches ; the whole is then covered with whjte paper, over which is placed a· coarse blanket or canvass bag, lled with straw. \Vhen the re has heated the kiln, a board, on which is a weight, is placed upon the blanket, and presses the sa ron together. It is used as a medicine, to avTour cakes, and to rm a yellow dye.
4. Camphor is the peculiar juice of a species of laurel, called the camphor-tree, which is abundant in China, Borneo, and Ceylon. Exposure to the air hardens it. It is remarkably in ammable, and is· used by the Indian princes to illuminate their rooms. It is pugent, volatile, acrid, and strongly aromatic. These qualities have i·endered it use l as a medi­ cine, and in sick rooms to prevent contagion. It is also placed in cabinets of natural history, to destroy the small insects th t prey upon the specimens.
AYO.