TEEEBINTHINA CHIA. 1G5 



seilles, and a small quantity to England. The common sort is employed 

 in the East in the manufacture of rahi and other cordials.^ 



Uses — Mastich is not now regarded as possessing any important 

 therapeutic virtues, and as a medicine is becoming obsolete. Even in 

 varnish making it is no longer employed as formerly, its place being 

 well supplied by less costly resins, such for example as dammar. 



Varieties — There is found in the Indian bazaars a kind of mastich 

 which though called Mtistagi-i'umi (Roman mastich), is not imported 

 from Europe but from Kabul, and is the produce of Pisfacia Khinjuk 

 Stocks, and the so-called P. cahulica St. trees growing all over Sind, 

 Beluchistan and Kabul.^ This drug, of which the better qualities closely 

 approximate to the mastich of Scio, sometimes appears in the European 

 market under the name of East Indian or Bombay Mastich. We^find 

 that when dissolved in half its weicfht of acetone or benzol, it deviates 

 the ray of light to the right. 



o 



The solid resin of the Algerian form of P. Terehinthus L., known as 

 P. atlantica Desf , is collected and used as mastich by the Arab tribes 

 of Northern Africa.^ 



TEREBINTHINA CHIA 



Terehinthina Cypria ; Chian or Cyprian Turpentine ; F. Terehenthine 

 ou Baume de Chio ou de Chypres ; G. Chios Terpenthin, Cyprischer 

 Terpenthin. 



Botanical Origin— Pistacm Terehinthus L. (P. atlantica Desf, 

 P. pakestina Boiss., P. cahulica Stocks), a tree 20 to 40 feet or more 

 la height, in some countries only a shrub, conmion on the islands and 

 shores of the Mediterranean as well as throughout Asia Minor, extend- 

 ing, as P. palmstina, to Syria and Palestine ; and eastward, as P. 

 cahulica, to Beluchistan and Afghanistan. It is found under the form 

 called P. atlantica in Northern Africa, where it grows to a large size, 

 and in the Canary Islands. 



These several forms are mostly regarded as so many distinct species ; 

 but after due consideration and the examination of a large number of 

 specimens both dried and living, we have arrived at the conclusion that 

 tney may fairly be united under a single specific name. The extreme 

 varieties certainly present great differences of habit, as anyone would 

 observe who had compared Pistacia Terehinthus as the straggling bush 

 which it is in Languedoc and Provence, with the noble umbrageous 

 tree it forms in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. But tlie different types 

 are united by so many connecting links, that we have felt warranted m 

 absenting from the opinion usually held respecting them. ^ 



On the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus, a kind of galls is produced, 

 winch we shall briefly notice in our article Gallae halepenses. 



'Consul Cumberbatcli, Report on Trade Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellsch, xxix. 582. 

 tfr^?.'\ f^'^ 1871.-i«Z;, derived from ' ' Powell, Economic Products of tJi^ Punjab, 

 rt^^^^I^'-^l «%3 ior mastich, which, r.oorkee, 18C8. 411. 



£'^ge to say, would appear to have its « Guibourt, Hi^t. d Dro<j. m (IS^O) 4o8, 



oH^ V,¥ ^^1*'°- In the vocabularies Armieux, Topograjph^e nUdicak du Sahara, 



found ^^^'^■•^'^"^^iaii Wiom " sachis" is Paris, 1866. 58, 

 Cleaning resin. — Blau, Zeitschrift der 



