362 PLIin's NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XVI. 



wood in the method employed for the manufacture of char- 

 coal. 43 It is this pitch that is used for seasoning wine, being 

 first pounded and reduced to a fine powder : it is of a blacker 

 colour, too, than the other sort. The same resin, if boiled gently 

 with water, and then strained off, becomes viscous, and assumes 

 a red colour; it is then known as "distilled 44 pitch:" for 

 making this, the refuse portions of the resin and the bark of 

 the tree are generally selected. 



Another method is adopted for the manufacture of that used 

 as crapula. 45 Raw flower of resin is taken, direct from the 

 tree, with a plentiful sprinkling of small, thin chips of the 

 wood. These are then pounded 46 down and passed through a 

 sieve, after which they are steeped in water, which is heated 

 till it comes to a boil. The unctuous portion that is extracted 

 from this is the best resin : it is but rarely to be met with, 

 and then only in a few places in Italy, in the vicinity of the 

 Alps: it is in considerable request for medicinal purposes. 

 For this, they generally boil a congius of white resin to two 

 congii of rain-water : 47 some persons, however, think it better 48 

 to boil it without water for one whole day by a slow fire, 

 taking care to use a vessel of white copper. 49 Some, again, 

 are in the habit of boiling the resin of the terebinth 50 in a flat 

 pan 51 placed upon hot ashes, and prefer it to any other kind. 

 The resin of the mastich 52 is held in the next degree of esti- 

 mation. 63 



43 See c. 8 of the present Book. 



44 Stillaticia. 45 See B. xiv. c. 25. 



46 This operation removes from the pitch a great portion of its essential 

 oil, and disengages it of any extraneous bodies that may have been mixed 

 with it. 



47 Fee remarks that there is no necessity for this selection, though no 

 doubt rain-water is superior to spring or cistern water, for some purposes, 

 from its holding no terreous salts in solution. 



48 This would colour the resin more strongly, Fee says, and give it a 

 greater degree of friability. 



49 See B. xxxiv. c. 20. 50 See B. xiv. c. 25, and B. xxiv. c. 22. 

 51 " Sartago." Generally understood to be the same as our frying-pan. 



Fee remarks that this method would most inevitably cause the mass in 

 fusion to ignite ; and should such not be the case, a coloured resin would 

 be the result, coloured with a large quantity of carbon, and destitute of all 

 the essential oil that the resin originally contained. 



« See B. xiv. c. 20. 



53 The terebinthine of the mastich, Fee says, is an oleo-resin, or in 

 other words, composed of an essential oil and a resin. 



