TAR AND TURPENTINE. 121 



five or six years the tree is abandoned; the upper 

 edge of the wound becomes cicatrized, but the bark 

 is never restored sufficiently for the renewal of the 

 process. 



"The crude turpentine, when distilled in large cop- 

 per retorts, yields up about seventeen per cent, of its 

 bulk in the form of an oil, known as 'spirits of tur- 

 pentine.' This is the ordinary 'turpentine' of the 

 drug stores. The residuum of the distillation is resin. 



"All the tar of the southern states is made from 

 dead wood of the long-leaved pine, consisting of trees 

 prostrated by time or by the fire kindled annually in 

 the forests; of the summits of those that are felled 

 for timber, and of limbs broken off by the ice which 

 sometimes overloads the leaves. To procure the tar, 

 a kiln is formed in a part of the forest abounding in 

 dead wood ; this is first collected, stripped of the sap, 

 and cut into billets two or three feet long and about 

 three inches thick ; a task which is rendered long and 

 difficult by the knots. The next step is to prepare a 

 place for piling it ; for this purpose a shallow conical 

 cavity is excavated in the side of a bank or hill, and a 

 cast iron pan placed at the bottom, from which leads 

 a spout into a barrel for collecting the tar. On this 

 pan is piled the wood in a circle. The pile when 

 finished is cone shaped twenty feet in diameter be- 

 low, and ten to twelve feet high. It is then strewed 

 with pine leaves, covered with earth, and contained 

 at the sides with a slight cincture of wood. This cov- 



