DISTILLATION OF STUMPWOOD. 67 



for the preliminary boiling with alkali, is fitted with the return- 

 flow condenser. At the end of the period of boiling the contents are 

 drawn off into a second steam still with a short fractionating column. 

 With this arrangement the operation can be conducted almost con- 

 tinuously. As soon as the charge, after preliminary boiling, is 

 drawn into the steam-refining still, a new charge of crude turpen- 

 tine can be drawn from the settling tanks into the first still. 



In a large plant the final refractionation of the first steam-dis- 

 tilled fractions can very well be carried out in a small continuous 

 fractionating still fitted with a short column. 



The alkali residuum, which consists partly of pine and tar oil, 

 with the sodium soaps of tar and resin acids, and an excess of alkali, 

 has been shown by test to have germicidal properties approximately 

 half as great as those of phenol. Its probable use as a local disin- 

 fectant, after partial neutralization of the free alkali with the 

 waste acid liquor, is thereby suggested. Probably it can be used, 

 after the addition of a small amount of coal-tar creosote, as the 

 basis of a dip for hogs to rid them of lice. No actual experiments 

 to determine the real value of this material have been made. It is 

 impossible, therefore, to give concise directions for its use. 



SUMMARY. 



(1) In general, the stumps of western yellow pine are not as 

 uniformly rich in resin as those of the longleaf yellow pine in rhe 

 South Atlantic and Gulf States. 



(2) The only wastes from western yellow-pine logging suitable 

 for profitable distillation on a commercial scale are those resinous 

 stumps which contain at least 50 per cent or more of resinous heart - 

 wood, and the resinous heartwood of stumps, dead, down wood, and 

 limbs from which the sapwood has rotted away. 



(3) It is impossible to classify western stumps into such grades 

 as " rich " or " pitchy," " medium," and " poor " merely by a super- 

 ficial examination of the quantity of resinous exudation on the face 

 of the stump. 



(4) " Rich " stumps, containing not less than 60 per cent of very 

 resinous heartwood, probably can be profitably distilled in a com- 

 mercial plant where the stand of such stumps is dense enough to 

 keep a plant supplied for a number of years. 



(5) Owing to the fact that there is a well-developed market in 

 the West for crude pine-wood oils for use in the flotation concentra- 

 tion of ores, and also to the small volume of " rich " wood obtain- 

 able within hauling distance, it is probable that single retort plants, 

 which can be dismantled and moved when necessary, are the most 

 suitable for wood distillation in that section of the country, espe- 



