071v - - - - - Varnish
To a half lb of spike lavender oil, put in 4 ℥ of sandarac & mastic, pulverized subtly . And first, boil your oil in a pot on a chafing dish, and then mix in little by little the aforesaid gums, stirring continually with a small stick split and quartered at the tip, & when you do not collect gum with the tip, that is to say that it is totally melted & that your varnish is done. And to render it clearer, put into the concoction a little lump of camphor. It is true that with this it is not dry so soon. Heed well that the spike lavender oil will be good, clear & not fatty, otherwise your varnish will be worth nothing. You can test it d by soaking some paper in it & heating it. If the oil, which will evaporate, leaves the paper clean, without being a yellow mark, it is good, if not, it is fatty.
Sheep fat
In a certain part of England, the sheep that graze there have very yellow fat and are nevertheless just as good as others.
Spider
There are no spiders in Ireland, & if one touches them with some wood that they have there, they die. That is why some rich people from England make their floors with this wood, & in this way, they do not have any spiderwebs.
Sand
The cimolée is very good for casting in copper, but one ought not take the one from cutlers, because it is only sludge, but rather the one of those who moulent mold large shears.
Pierres de filieres, which knife grinders use for whetting, mold very neatly, once scraped, for lead. It is commonly slate—colored. One frequently brings them to Toulouse from around Carcassonne .