SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



To most of us, rosin is a hard, clear, amber-colored 

 substance, rubbed on violin bows, dusted on wrestlers' 

 hands. But tons of rosin go into our paper, soap, varnish, 

 and linoleum, and, believe it or not, rosin is an acid, 

 abietic acid, the cheapest of all the complex organic 

 acids. Turpentine is a cheap, colorless thinner for paints 

 and a useful solvent for fats and greases. But to a 

 chemist turpentine is a mixture of organic chemicals, 

 chiefly pinene. 



Rosin and turpentine are one thing; abietic acid and 

 pinene are something quite different. They are chem- 

 ical raw materials, convenient packages of atoms that 

 can be juggled into such valuable products as plastics, 

 synthetic camphor, perfume materials, even rubber. 

 So every time the price of rosin and turpentine dropped, 

 the Hercules and Newport chemists have just killed 

 two birds with one stone by turning these natural raw 

 materials into other, more valuable products. Thus the 

 companies got out of competition in a falling, glutted 

 market for naval stores and fared forth into new chem- 

 ical fields where profits were more attractive. 



Even before the end of World War I camphor, which 

 the Japanese had monopolized, and terpineol, for which 

 perfumers would pay a handsome price because of its 

 fine lilaclike odor, had both been synthesized out of 

 turpentine. Today terpineol is made in such quantities, 

 and so cheaply, that it is being used in making soaps, 

 inks, paints, and bug killers. As for camphor, we com- 



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