less than a right one, and on the outside there is left no angle, but it is cut off with a round; by which means, I suppose the great grinding-stone slides constantly towards and is kept close to the round stone that stands fixed in the centre, described N° 1°, upon which the perpendicular turning beam stands.

3°. So much of the floor or inside of the mill as the grinding-stone does not touch, or is a little without its breadth, is covered with boards lying more shelving than the stone floor within it; on which board floor the olives to be ground are at first laid, which are not thrown all at once under the grinding-stone, but are by small parcels shovelled down under the grindingstone by the man that attends the mill; every passing round of the stone a few; and here lies also the pulp which the stone works out in its grinding, which is also shovelled in its turn; for the floor of the mill, where the grinding-stone bears on it, has always very little upon it, its great weight working it still out towards the circumference of the floor, for the stone in the middle hinders it from going inwards.

4°. The grinding-stone is about six feet diameter, and about eleven inches thick, and on the edge and inside is wrought very smooth, and stands upright without leaning, that I could perceive; though, as I have said, the edge be not square to the sides, which is recompensed in the sinking of the floor towards the centre. The stone whereof it is made seems to be very hard, and it need be hard and heavy to break olive-stones and grind them to powder.

II°. That the shovels which they use to shovel in the pulp under the grinder, and when it is fine enough to take it out, and put it in the stone troughs, and then into the frails, are more like bakers' peels than shovels, and there is not any iron upon any of them.

III. That there are between the mill and the press two great stone troughs to put the pulp in when ground; two pedestals and two stone cisterns, into which the oil runs from the two pedestals by distinct passages, so that two people's oil may be pressed at once, without the danger of mingling a drop.

IV. The press is made thus: there are two pedestals about nineteen or twenty inches asunder, which lie just under the great end of the great beam; that which I call a pedestal is a round plain stone about twenty-six inches diameter, round about which is cut a groove or little trench in the same stone nine or ten inches broad; from the groove of each pedestal there is made a distinct passage for the oil to run to the two cisterns: upon these pedestals the frails are laid, and into these grooves or trenches the oil runs when pressed out of the frails, and so is conveyed separately to the two cisterns.

V°. Behind the hindmost pedestal stand erect in the ground two great beams, well fastened in the ground, as far on sunder from each other as the breadth of the pressing-beam, which is to pass up and down between them. From the nearest side of the nearest pedestal to the middle of the thickness of these beams horizontally is about twenty-nine inches: in the middle of each of these beams, in respect of their thickness, is cut a mortise or slit quite through, about forty-four or forty-five inches long, and about five or six inches broad; the bottom of this mortise is about forty-four inches higher than the pedestal.

VI. This which I call the great mortise, they fill with several pieces of wood reaching quite athwart from outside to outside, and more, of the two erect beams; these pieces of wood, or, as I call them, wedges, are as thick as just easily to go into the mortise, and somewhat broader; with these they fill up this mortise when this end of the pressing-beam is sunk below the lowest part of it, and thereby pin down the great end of the said beam to keep it down upon the frails, when the other end is drawn down by the screw; for by more or less of the wedges put into this mortise, they keep down the great end of the beam to the height that is fittest to with. press

VII. The pressing-beam is thirty-eight pans, or about thirty-two feet long, and about thirty-four inches broad; and, to increase its weight and strength, another great beam was fastened to it all along with bands of iron.

very

VIII. At the little end is a screw, whereof the screw (for it standing upright I could not measure it) was, as I guess, about thirteen or fourteen feet; the square of it, wherein the holes for the levers were cut, something above a yard; and at the bottom was a great round stone, in which this lower end of the screw is fastened with iron-work, so as to have the liberty to turn. The screw, when it is turned faster than this end of the pressing-beam sinks, lifts up this great stone from the ground, which is as broad, thick, and heavy as an ordinary mill-stone.

IX. Between the screw and the two erect beams placed behind the pedestals before described, stand two other beams, erect as the former, with a mortise in them long enough to hold only one wedge; this I call the little mortise, the top whereof is higher than the level of the highest frail, when they lay on most: upon this wedge the beam is to rest, when they are laying in or taking out the frails. So that the length of the great beam is thus divided: behind the pinning wedges three pans, from the pinning to the supporting wedge twenty pans, from the supporting wedge to the screw fifteen pans.

There is a piece of wood fastened on to the great beam, cross it, hanging over on each side, and placed just by the middle erect beams on the side towards the pedestals, to keep the great beam from sliding towards the screw.

X°. The ground where the great screw-stone lies is much lower than the level of the pedestals, which affords also a convenience for the placing the two cisterns, which are just under the great beam, and a little distance from the outmost pedestal.

XI. The matter of the frails they use in pressing and the texture is the same with the frails that bring raisins to England; but the figure just the same with that of an hat-case, the crown being taken away: they are exactly all of a breadth, and scarce discernibly narrower than the pedestal; the hole to put in the pulp about one-third of the breadth or diameter.

XII. The oil that runs at first pressing, before the mixture of water, they call virgin oil, which is better than the other; but they all say it will not keep, but spoil in a month or two, unless you put to it salt or sugar, salt is the better of the two, and then it will keep six months as much as you can hold in your two hands is enough to put into a septié of oil. A septié is thirty-two pots, and their pot is more than our quart.

XIII. They usually, therefore, let the virgin and other oil, of the second and third pressing, mingle all together in the cistern, which being afterwards put up in jars, and kept in cool cellars, will keep good seven years; but the mingling of some of the hot water, after pressing, with the virgin oil, will not preserve it. So that it seems to be something either in the skins or stones of the olives, that comes not out but by the mixture of hot water and hard pressing, that serves to preserve it.

XIV. They begin to gather their olives, as I have said, about St. Catharine's day, i. e. the 25th of November.

XV. All confess that oil is better which is made of olives fresh gathered, than those that have been kept a month or two: but some tell me they delay so long (for when I saw them making oil, it was almost the middle of February) because olives that are kept yield the more oil; others say, the reason why they are not pressed sooner, is because every body's grist cannot be ground at once, and they must stay till they can get a turn; and by keeping, they say also, they grind better, for the new gathered spirt away from the mill.

XVI. After they have gathered their olives, they lay them in heaps in the corner of a cellar, or some such other place, upon little faggots of dried vine branches (a good part of the fuel of the country) between the olives and the ground, where sometimes a black water will run from them; this they call purg ing them. In these heaps they lie till they press them; none lie less than fifteen days; but, for the reasons above-mentioned, they sometimes lie two months.

XVII. Though they begin to gather their olives about the end of November, as has been said; yet they never set their mills on work till after Twelfth-day, or New-year's-day, at soonest: the reason whereof is this: the master of the mill hires a great many men, for the time that oil is made, who keep the mill going day and night. Those whose oil is making give these workmen meat and drink, whilst they are employed about their olives; so that if the master should entertain them before Christmas, he must not only pay them for so many holidays, whilst they stand still, but maintain

them too.

XVIII. Four septiés of olives usually yield one septié of oil; but I observed they were somewhat heaped.

XIX. The goodness of the oil depends exceedingly on the property of the soil: this makes the oil of Aramont in Provence, not far from Avignon, the best in France.

XX. When they are either filling the frails, or new stirring the pulp in them, there are two men at work at each pedestal, besides a fifth, that takes the pulp out of the trough thereby, wherein it lies ready ground, and with a shovel puts it into the frails as they bring them; or else lades boiling water out of the furnace (which is also by, and the top of it level with the ground, with a trap-door over) and pours it into the frails as they are ready for it.

XXI. When the oil is made, carried home, and has settled, they usually take three-fourths of the upper part; this they call the flower, and put it into earthen pots for eating; the remainder, being thicker, is kept for lamps and such other uses: and the very thick sediment they put in the sun, to get as much oil out as they can.

XXII. The pulp, that is left after all the pressing and affusion of boiling water, belongs to the master of the mill, who sells it for a groat or five-pence a mill-full, to others, who press it again, and make a coarse oil for soap, and other such uses.

XXIII. The remaining pulp the bakers use to