142 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



wood,' and the tar prepared from it is called ' dead tar ' 

 to distinguish it from ' green tar ' which is got from 

 freshly felled trees, already used some years for tur- 

 pentine. The green is preferred to the dead. Tar- 

 coaling is done in a pit lined with clay, in which the 

 wood is covered with earth and coaled by a slow fire; 

 the tar sweated out goes to the bottom and runs 

 through wooden pipes into casks more deeply buried. + 

 Tar-coaling is here a winter-business, and by the use 

 of wind-falls, dead trees, and those that have been 

 boxed for turpentine, the people make money almost 

 from nothing, since where this business is not carried 

 on, such wood rots useless in the forest. A middling 

 sized cart full of resin-wood, or so much as two thin 

 oxen can draw, yields a barrel, by the usual estimate, 

 or a cask of tar, worth 12 shillings or 1^ Spanish 

 dollars. 



From the tar is burned pitch; either in great iron 

 cauldrons or, more commonly, in pits, 6 ft. deep and 

 four and a half across, and lined with clav if the soil 

 is not already clay. Such a pit can hold 50 or more 

 casks of tar. Three casks of tar give about 2 of pitch. 

 A cask of tar costing 12 shillings, and one of pitch 20 

 shillings, it follows that since 3 of the one make but 

 2 of the other, only 4 shillings are gained. But there 

 is besides a saving in casks, rated at 2^3-3 shillings 

 a-piece, and the pitch loses nothing in keeping, where- 

 as tar is a diminishing article. 



Oil of turpentine is obtained by distillation of tur- 

 pentine, and the residue is common rosin. A cask of 

 turpentine gives some 3 gallons of turpentine-oil and 

 29 gallons go to rosin. A gallon of turpentine-oil 

 costs a half dollar, and a cask of rosin three dollars. 



