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Sack.

A bag of leather or fabric, used for holding grain, salt, coal, and innumerable other articles.

The word sack is said to be the only one which survived the confusion of tongues at Babel, being the same in all languages. Each man, as soon as he found something was going wrong, called for his sack to carry home his tools in.

Sacks are made in Western India from the inner bark of the Antiaris saccidora. A section of the tree about one foot in diameter is cut off, of the length required for a sack; soaking and pounding loosens it, and it is stripped off as a squirrel is skinned. Sew up the end, and the thing is complete. The bark is also used, pounded thin, cut up to the pattern required, and sewn together like any other fabric.

The Spanish wine called sack, which would appear to have formed the principal nutriment of Falstaff, is said to derive its name from the leathern sacks containing it; others, however, think it a corruption of sec (dry).

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