There is at
Burton-hill, juxta Malmesbury, fullers' earth, as also about Westport,
and elsewhere thereabout, which the cloathiers use.
Tobacco-pipe-clay excellent, or the best in England, at Chittern, of
which the Gauntlet pipes at Amesbury are made, by one of that name.
They are the best tobacco pipes in England. [See a curious paragraph
on the subject of Gauntlet-pipes in Fuller's Worthies,- Wiltshire.-J.
B.]
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The earth about Malmesbury hundred and Chippenham hundred, especially
about Pewsham-forest, is vitriolate, or aluminous and vitriolate;
which in hot weather the sun does make manifest on the banks of the
ditches.
At Bradfield and Dracot Cerne is such vitriolate earth; which with
galles will make inke. This makes the land so soure, it beares sowre
and austere plants: it is a proper soile for dayries. At summer it
hunger-banes the sheep; and in winter it rotts them.
These clayy and marly lands are wett and dirty; so that to poore
people, who have not change of shoes, the cold is very incommodious,
which hurts their nerves exceedingly. Salts, as the Lord Chancellor
Bacon sayes, doe exert (irradiate) raies of cold. Elias Ashmole, Esq.
got a dangerous cold by sitting by the salt sacks in a salter's shop,
which was like to have cost him his life. And some salts will corrode
papers, that were three or four inches from it. The same may be sayd
of marble pavements, which have cost some great persons their lives.
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