STORAX. 243 
been extracted. Another account says the resin is chiefly collected 
by a tribe of wandering Turcomans called Yuruks, who boil the 
inner bark in a large copper, the liquid resin rising to the surface 
is skimmed off. The boiled bark is next put into horsehair bags 
and pressed, the extracted resin being added to the portion first 
obtained. 
The result of these processes is an opaque grey or greyish- 
brown semi-fluid resin of about the consistence of honey, which is 
exported in casks to Constantinople, Smyrna, Syra, and Alexan- 
dria. Some is also packed with a certain proportion of water in 
goat-skins and sent to Smyrna, where it is transferred to casks 
and shipped mostly to Trieste. This balsam is known to the 
Turks by names which mean “ Black Frankincense oil,’ Incense- 
oil,’ and “ Sighala oil” (from the district between Melasso and 
Macri, where much of it is collected), The Greeks often designate 
it by the first-mentioned Turkish name. As imported into 
Bombay from the Red Sea ports, this balsam is known as Rose 
Malloes, being evidently confused with the resin obtained from 
the “ Liquidambar Altingiana”’ of the Indian Archipelago, a tree 
which bears the Malay name of Ras-Sama-la. 
The residual bark, after the extraction of the liquid storax, is 
emptied out of the bags and exposed in the sun to dry. It has 
the appearance of brownish-red cakes consisting of thin, narrow 
reddish strips, tightly pressed together and having a sweet 
balsamic odour. These cakes are known as Red Storax and 
Black Frankincense leaf, and in pharmacy as Cortex Thymiamatis, 
Cortex Thuris, Thus Judeorum, Narcaphthum. In modern Greek 
it is known by the simple name “ Storax.” 
The semi-fluid resin of Liquidambar orientalis always contains a 
certain amount of water which, by degrees, floats to the surface. 
By age the resin becomes more transparent and of a dark brown 
colour. It also becomes transparent and more fluid on the appli- 
cation of heat, parting with the water mechanically held in 
solution and depositing solid impurities at the bottom of the flask. 
On being spread out very thinly it partly dries, but does not quite 
lose its stickiness. After being separated from the water con- 
tained in it, it reddens litmus. It dissolves in alcohol, chloroform, 
ether, acetic acid, bisulphide of carbon, and in most essential oils, 
but not in petroleum benzene. In coal-tar benzene it dissolves 
with ease, and this forms the best menstruum for freeing it from 
R2 
