THE 

 LONDON, EDINBURGH and DUBLIN 



PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 



AND 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



AUGUST 1843. 



XIII. Examination of the Cowdie Pine Resin. By Ro- 

 bert D. Thomson, M.D., Conductor of the Laboratory and 

 of the Classes of Practical Chemistry in the University of 

 Glasgow*. 



r T 1 HE Cowdie resin has been known for some years to those 

 botanists who are familiar with the vegetation of New Zea- 

 land. Mr. Robert Brown informs me that he possesses a very 

 large and elegant specimen of this substance ; but it does not 

 appear to have hitherto attracted the attention of chemists. 

 I have been acquainted with its external properties for some 

 years, from a specimen in our private chemical museum in the 

 College, but it was only in the course of last spring that my 

 attention was particularly called to its examination, in conse- 

 quence of having large and beautiful specimens presented to me 

 by my friend Dr. Ernst Dieffenbach, formerly of Giessen and 

 lately naturalist to the New Zealand Company, who, by his 

 laborious and indefatigable exertions while resident in New 

 Zealand, has contributed so extensively to our knowledge of 

 the moral and physical condition of that interesting British 

 colony f . 



I am indebted to Mr. Robert Brown for the information 

 that this resin is derived from the Dammara Australis, a tree 

 which belongs to the natural order Conferee, and division 

 Abietina. (See also Lambert's Pines.) The resin is, I be- 

 lieve, known by the native name of " Cowdie" and in conse- 

 quence the tree from which it exudes is usually termed the 

 " Cowdie Pine." There is an excellent specimen of this pine 

 in the Glasgow Botanic Garden, on which I have been able 

 to detect distinct traces of a resinous exudation. In the same 



* Read before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, March 15, 1843; 

 and now communicated by the Author. A paper on the Cowdie Resin, by 

 Mr. Prideaux, will be found in Phil. Mag. S. iii. vol. xii. p. 249. 



f See Dieffenbach's Travels in New Zealand. London, 8vo. 2 vols. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 23. No. 150. August 1843. G 



