Q: a curious mark and an unfamiliar word

[Joel S. Berson]

Two questions from another list
Joel
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... Each is a question involving the late-18C MSS
I'm working with, by French-born J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur:

1. a mark that resembles a theta

Occasionally it functions like a footnote marker
or a mark indicating where an insertion is to go,
like an apostrophe (i.e., the mark will be at a
particular point within a paragraph and then
again at beginning of a note he has written in
the margin, nearby).  More often, however, it
seems to be a unit of measure, and here I'm substituting an apostrophe:

<> . . . said to contain about 600* acres . . . .
<> . . . here is then 600* acres of the most valuable . . . .
<> . . . different dimensions, some 100, some 25* acres.
<> I have seen many upwards of 3 feet wide and 18
   feet long, and 70* of inch boards is looked upon there
   as a good year’s work . . . .

2. an odd word, àlagrichés

Context involves speaker's considering possibly
escaping the pressures of the American Revolution
by going off to live among the Indians:

  . . . what is it to us whether we eat well-made pastry
  or pounded àlagrichés, well-roasted beef or smoked
  venison, cabbages or squashes?

[This is from _Letters from an American Farmer_,
Letter XII, as published in the English edition.]

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