BURGUNDY PITCH. 49 



White Resin, White Pitch, Yellow Eesin, Yellow Pitch [ Weisses 1867. 



ffarz, iveisses Peek, gelbes Harz, gelbes Peek], Resina s. Pix flava s. ' 



citrina. 



It is obtained by melting common resin with the frequent Dr. Berg, 

 addition of water and subsequently straining. According as 

 the melting has lasted a longer or shorter time, the resin remains 

 paler in colour and constitutes White Eesin, or becomes darker 

 and is called Yellow Resin, and is thereby richer or poorer in 

 oil of turpentine. The first, owing to the water which it con- 

 tains, is almost entirely opaque, white, brittle, arid becomes 

 gradually yellow. The second, through the formation of a little 

 colopholic acid by reason of the longer melting, is of a yellow, 

 dark yellow, or brownish colour, very brittle, here and there 

 clear, and has a conchoidal glassy fracture. An inferior kind, 

 called White Pitch, is obtained from the resin that is first pro- 

 duced in the manufacture of tar, and has a brownish-yellow 

 colour. The true Burgundy Resin or Pitch, Resina s. Pix Bur- 

 gundica, is the similarly prepared resin of Picea excelsa and Pinus 

 Pinaster, which is brought into commerce in the form of dull, 

 dirty-yellow brittle masses of a glassy fracture, softening in the 

 hand. Ordinary Burgundy Pitch is White Resin which has 

 been gently melted for a short time without the addition of 

 water, so that it is in fact freed from a part of its water, 

 but has not yet acquired the brown colour of colophony. 



In France as in England the term Burgundy Pitch (Poix 

 de Bourgogne) is by the more accurate writers restricted to the 

 melted and strained resin of the Spruce Fir, of which substance 

 the following description is given in the last edition of the 

 Codex : Codex. 



[Translation]. Burgundy Pitch is of a brownish yellow, 

 solid and brittle in the cold, flowing when warm, very ten- 

 acious, having a peculiar odour, and an aromatic taste without 

 bitterness ; not completely soluble in alcohol in the cold. 

 There is frequently substituted for it another product called 

 white pitch [poix llanche], prepared with galipot 1 or a mixture 

 of yellow resin and Bordeaux turpentine, melted and mixed 

 with water ; this artificial pitch has a strong smell of Bordeaux 

 turpentine and a very marked bitter taste. It is entirely soluble 

 in alcohol. 



1 (Note by translator). Galipot, dry resin collected in France from the 

 trunks of Pinus maritima, Lamb. 







