BOOK XVI. XXI. 52-xxii. 55 



it is used for embalming the bodies of the dead. 

 XXII. The hqiior that follows is thicker, and now 

 produces pitch ; this in its turn is collected in copper 

 cauldrons and thickened by means of vinegar, as 

 making it coagulate, and it has been given the name 

 of Bruttian pitch ; it is only useful for casks and 

 similar receptacles, and diifers from other pitch by its 

 viscosity and also by its reddish colour and because 

 it is greasier than all the rest. It is made from pitch- 

 resin caused to boil by means of red-hot stones in casks 

 made of strong oak, or, if casks are not available, by 

 pihng up a heap of billets, as in the process of making 

 charcoal. It is this pitch which is used for seasoning 

 wine after being beaten up into a powder hke flour, 

 when it has a rather black colour. The same resin, 

 if rather gently boiled with water and strained ofF, 

 becomes viscous and turns a reddish colour ; this is 

 caUed ' distilled pitch.' For making this the inferior 

 parts of the resin and the bark of the tree are usually 

 set aside. Another mixing process produced * in- 

 toxication resin ' : raw flower of resin is picked ofF 

 the tree with a quantity of thin, short chips of the 

 wood, and broken up small in a sieve, and then 

 steeped in water heated to boihng. The grease of 

 this that is extracted makes the best quahty of resin, 

 and it is rarely obtainable, and only in a few districts 

 of Italy near the Alps. It is suitable for medical use : 

 the doctors boil f of a gallon of white resin in IJ 

 gallons of rain-water — though others think it pays 

 better to boil it without water over a slow fire for a 

 whole day, and to employ a vessel of white copper, 

 or to boil resin from the turpentine-tree in a flat pan 

 on hot ashes, as they prefer this to all the other kinds. 

 The resin of the mastich is rated next. 



423 



