If you can't find milled flax seeds, you can usually find them whole labeled as linseed.
Lead stirred in silica gave pots a hard, shining glaze; a little lead oxide, added to glass, gave it a crystalline sparkle; white lead, ground with linseed oil, primed painters' canvases and made them spring to life.
See also cottonseed; linseed; copra.
Other crops include linseed, sesame, sugarcane, and cotton, as well as various millets, which are grown in hilly areas.
Saltpetre and linseed oil processing are the chief industries.
Sodium tungstate is also used to produce phosphotungstic acid-type organic dyes and pigments, which are brilliant, light-resistant, and insoluble in water and linseed oil.
In the 2nd century ad, the Greek physician Galen wrote of the use of nut oils e.g., hempseed and linseed oils as drying oils.
When Johannes Gutenberg invented printing with movable type in Germany in about 1440, inks were made by mixing varnish or boiled linseed oil with lampblack.
The objects then were japanned with a varnish that differed from area to area but was generally based on a mixture of linseed oil, driers, and colours.
The genus Linum includes flax, perhaps the most important member of the family, grown for linen fibre and linseed oil and as a garden ornamental.
Thus linseed oil may be winterized to remove traces of waxes that otherwise interfere with its use in paints and varnishes.
