61G CONIFERS. 



Chemical Composition — After the complete desiccation of a small 

 (juantity, there remained 72*4 per cent, of a brittle, transparent resin, 

 soluble in glacial acetic acid, but not entirely in absolute alcohol or in 

 acetone. By submitting half a pound of the turpentine to distillation 

 with water, we obtained 24 per cent, of essential oil, the remaining resin 

 being when cold perfectly friable. The fresh oil, purified by sodium, 

 deviates the ray of polarized light to the left, whereas the remaining 

 resin, dissolved in half its weight of benzol, shows a weak dextrogyre 

 rotation. The oil boils at 163° C. After having kept it for two years 

 and a half in a well-stopped bottle, we find that it has become 

 considerably thicker and now deviates to the right. If saturated with 

 dry hydrochloric acid, the oil does not yield a solid compound. 



This oil has nearly the same agreeable odour as the crude oleo-resin, 

 yet the essential oil of the cones of the same tree is still more fragrant. 

 The latter is one of the most powerfully deviating oils, the rotation 

 being 51° to the left, and it is consequently extremely different from 

 the oil obtained from the turpentine of the stem, though its composition 

 is represented by the same formula, C^ff*'. 



A peculiar sugar called Abietite, nearly related to mannite but 

 having the composition C^^ff "0^ has been detected by Rochleder^ in 

 the leaves of the Silver Fir. 



Uses — Strassburg turpentine possesses the properties of common 

 turpentine, with the advantage of a very agreeable odour. It was 

 formerly held in great esteem, but has now become nearly forgotten. 



PIX BURGUNDICA. 



Pix ahietina ; Burgundy Pitch ; F. Poix de Bourgogne ou des Vosges, 

 Poix jaune ; G. Fichtenharz, Tannenharz. 



Botanical Origin — Pinus Abies L. {Abies excelsa DC), the Norway 

 Spruce Fir,2 a noble tree attaining an elevation of 100-100 feet, widely 

 distributed throughout Northern and the mountainous parts of Central 

 Europe, but not indigenous to Great Britain, though extensively planted. 

 In Russian Lapland it reaches at 68° N. lat. almost the extreme limit 

 of tree-vegetation, while southward it extends to the Spanish Pyrenees. 

 In the Alps it ascends to 6,000 feet above the level of the sea. 



History — In accordance with the definition of the London Phar- 

 copoeias and the custom of English druggists the name Burgundy Pitch 

 is restricted to the product of the above-named species. The pharmaco- 

 logists of France use an equivalent term with the same limitations; but 

 in other parts of the Continent Pix Burgundica has a wider meaning, 

 and is allowed to include the turpentines of other Coniferce. We here 

 employ it in the English sense. 



Parkinson, an apothecary of London and herbarist to King Charles 

 I., speaks of " Burgony Pitch" as a thing w^ell known in his time.^ Dale 

 in his PharmcLCologia (1693) mentions Pix Burgundica as being im- 

 ported into England from Germany, and it is also noticed by Salmon 



' Wiggers and Husemann, Jahresbericht, - Pesse or Epic6a of the French ; Fkhte 



1868. 53. or RotlUcmne of the Germans. 



=* Theater of Pla7itti, 1640. 1542. 



