96 



SYLVA AMERICANA. 



casks used for packing fish ; but for this purpose many other 

 kinds of wood are preferred. The resin of the pines is extracted 

 by means of incisions in the body of the tree, at which it exudes 

 from the pores of the bark and from the sap vessels of the 

 alburnum. In the silver fir this substance is naturally deposited 

 in vesicles on the trunk and limbs, and is collected by bursting 

 these tumors and receiving their contents in appropriate vessels. 

 This resin is sold in Europe and the United States under the 

 name of Balm of Gilead, though every body knows that the true 

 balm of Gilead is produced by the Amyris gileadensis, a very 

 different vegetable and a native of Asia ; perhaps the name has 

 been borrowed in consequence of some resemblance between the 

 substances in taste and smell. The fresh turpentine is a greenish 

 transparent fluid of an acrid penetrating taste ; given inconsider- 

 ately it produces heat in the bladder, and applied to wounds it 

 causes inflammation and acute pains. It has been highly 

 celebrated in England, and is recommended in certain stages of 

 the pulmonary consumption. 



Hemlock Spruce. 



plate IV. 



Fig. 1. A branch with a cone. Fig. !?. A seed. 



Abies canadensis. 



The hemlock spruce is 

 known only by this name 

 throughout the United States, 

 and by that ofPerusse among 

 the French Canadians. It 

 is natural to the coldest re- 

 gions of America, and begins 

 to appear about Hudson's 

 Bay, near lake St. John, 

 and in the neighborhood of 

 Quebec it fills the forests, 

 and in Nova Scotia, New 

 Brunswick, the state of 

 Maine, Vermont and a con- 

 siderable part of New Hamp- 

 shire, it constitutes three- 

 fourths of the evergreen 



