1224 PINUS. [CLASS XXI. ORDER VIII, 
in the still is the common resin of commerce ; and if the residue is, 
while cooling, agitated with water, it loses some of its grosser im- 
purities, becomes of a paler yellow colour, and is called yellow 
resin. 
The roots furnish the Tar of commerce, which is obtained by 
burning them with a smothered flame in cone-shaped heaps, sur- 
rounded with sods. The tar runs from the bottom of the pit during 
the combustion, and is conveyed along channels into vessels placed 
to receive it. 
The bark of the Fir is used by the Norwegians in times of scarcity 
to make bread ; for this purpose the bark is stripped from the older 
trees, and the alburnum, which is white, succulent, and fibrous, is 
separated, and kept for use. The natives prepare it for this purpose, 
by baking it until!it is hard; it then becomes porous: this ground 
into powder, and kneaded with water, is formed into cakes. This 
miserable substitute for bread is of a brown colour, and flavoured with 
the resin of the tree, the nutriment which it contains is very little, 
and depends upon the starchy matter present in the bark. The outer 
bark is soft, light, and spongy, and is used in the place of cork, 
and the young shoots are collected and used as food in the form of 
salad, and when dried it is kept in store as winter provender for the 
rein-deer. 
The uses to which tar is applied, especially in ship building, are well 
known, and the protection it affords, when painted over exposed wood 
work, is in its forming a varnish, which excludes the action of 
the air and moisture. It is well known that Fir piles will last longer 
under water than any other wood, a circumstance owing, no doubt, to 
the cells of the wood being studded over with glands, which secrete 
the resinous juices; but if the wood is exposed to the action of 
sun and water alternately, the juices are soon evaporated, and the 
wood speedily perishes. 
All the Pines and Fir tribe abound with resins in combination with 
essential oils more or less fragrant; from the P. Zeda the frankin- 
cense is obtained. In the early history of the Greeks we find that 
the sacrifices which they offered to their gods were those things which 
they most prized for themselves as food, such as acorns, fruits, and 
green herbs; but in more modern times they used frankincense, 
though at the era of the Trojan war, according to Pliny, they offered 
instead of that cedar and citron. The offering up of similar oblations 
to the gods was customary in most other nations. Ovid, in describing 
the sacrifice of the primitive Italians, says— 
“ In former times the gods were cheaply pleas’d, 
A little corn and salt their wrath appeas’d, 
Ere stranger ships had brought from distant shores, 
Of spicy trees the aromatic stores ; 
From India or Euphrates had not come 
The fragrant incense or the costly gum ; 
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