n 



ancients z^7r/o-ff«; and this substance, after it had been some time steeped in the sea, was nsed medicinally as a 

 resolvent/ Blended with a certain quantity of oil and suet, pitch becomes an useful article to the shoemakers ' 

 for waxing their threads, and with whale fat it forms the grease with which wheels of carriages are smeared 

 over. In several kinds of luting also, this article possesses considerable utility, and is familiar to most 

 mechanics and handicraftsmen. 



r 



LAMP-BLACK. 



(Fuligo Pinea.J 



Noir de fimiee^ of the French. ' 



Any species of Pine may be used for making lamp-black, but the general practice is to convert the impu- 

 rities left in the precipitation of tar and pitch to this purpose. The mode followed in Germany is thus 

 described by Axtius, who has been copied by Duhamel, and it is illustrated in the works of both these 

 authors by engravings.'' A sort of box is made, nicely closed in every part with the exception of some holes 

 in the top, which are covered, however, with a sort of linen cone. At a little distance from the box a furnace 

 is constructed, with a very small mouth, and the inferior part communicating with the inside of the box, by 

 an horizontal chimney. Into this furnace are put the dregs and coarser parts left in the preparation of tar, 

 and in proportion to the consumption of these a supply is kept up, so as to furnish a constant draught of 

 smoke to the box. The smoke goes chiefly into the cone, where it deposits its grosser parts in the form of 

 soot, which when beaten off from the linen by sticks applied on the outside, is collected from the upper part 

 of the box and put into barrels. 



Lamp-black is employed almost exclusively in printing and dying in the present day, but it was formerly 

 used as a substitute for the Fuligo Tliuiis, which is mentioned by Dioscoridcs and Celsus as a resolvent and 

 digestive, and formed an ingredient in some of their plasters. The first of these authors describes a process 

 for obtaining lamp-black literally by means of a lamp, and attributes to it astringent properties (especially in 

 ichorous discharges from the eyes) as well as a remarkable efficacy in promoting the growth of hair on the 

 eye-brows.' Galen also adverts to the same remedy in his account of the fuliginous substances prepared from 

 difl*erent kinds of resin.'' There is a Tinctura Fiiliginis retained in the Edinburgh Pharmacopceia; this is exhibited 

 internally^ as an antihysteric, but rarely trusted to alone, being found most efficacious when combined with 

 assafoetida, or other medicines of that class, to all of which it seems to be far inferior. It is directed to be 

 prepared from wood-soot, without any particular tree being specified as preferable for this purpose to another. . 



-■-^ 



i u 



BARK-BBEAD 



^ i 



We are informed by Linnceus ' that the Laplanders cat, during a great part of the winter, and sometimes 

 even during the whole year, a preparation of the inner bark of the pine, which is called among these people 

 Bark-hroed. This substance is made in the following manner, viz. After a selection of the tallest and least 

 ramose trees, (for the dwarf, branching ones contain too great a quantity of resinous juice) the dry and scaly 

 external bark is carefully taken ofl*, and the soft, white, fibrous, and succulent matter collected and di'ied. 

 The time of the year chosen for this process is when the alhurmim is soft and spontaneously separates from 

 the wood by very gentle pulling, otherwise too much labour would be required. When the natives are 

 about to convert it to use, it is slowly baked on the coals, and being thus rendered more porous and hard 

 is then ground into powder, which is kneaded with water into cakes and baked in an. oven. 



The Siberian ermine-hunters, when their ferment or yeast which they carry with them to make their 

 Quass, is spoiled by the cold, digest the inner bark of the pine with water over the fire during an hour, mix it 

 with their rye-meal, bury the dough in the snow, and after twelve hours find the ferment ready prepared in 

 the subsiding faeces.' 



t' J , ^ 



4 - -^ ^u ^ 



i - -i^ : ^ » 





' Dioscorid. c. 82. ■ ■ 



' Siinpl. Med. lib. 7. 



Tract deArb. conif. c. 15. Traitk des Arh. Tom. 1. p. 17- fig. 4. '. . ' Dioscorides, lib. 1. c. 79. 



' Fl. Lapp. Smith, p. 284. . ' Pallas. Fl. Ross. I. p. 2. 3. 



X 



