140 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
verted into warm water, by condensing the heated tar and 
vapour which passed from the boiler. Within the vat this 
spiral tube formed a tortuous worm ; and again passing out 
at the opposite bottom of the vessel, to the end of it a long 
glass bottle was luted, which received the turpentine as it 
dropped from the tube. One side of the house was filled 
with the recent cut chips of the fir wood, which had not as 
yet been put into the boiler; whilst the other side con- 
tained those which had come out from it, from which the 
turpentine had been extracted, and which were now used 
as fuel to supply the fire. 
‘A little after my arrival the distillation was completed, 
and the boors removed the bottle, which was rudely luted: 
by means of clay, from the tube. Upon examining its 
contents I found that the under half of it contained water, 
whilst the upper cne contained the empyreumatic oil of 
turpentine, which, from its less specific gravity, naturally 
rises towards the surface. In order to separate it from the 
water, these Russian boors took a very simple method, 
and, at the same time, one very characteristic of a bar- 
barous people. The bottle, which was of coarse green glass, 
had a very minute hole bored in the bottom of it, which 
was stopt up with a small wooden plug. They removed 
this plug, and allowed the water gradually to escape, until 
the turpentine made its appearance at the hole, when they 
replaced the pin, and poured the turpentine into another 
bottle for preservation ; which constituted the whole pro- 
cess, 
‘Upon requesting to see the quantity of turpentine 
which they had made in the course of the day, the old 
Russian brought from the corner of the house a bottle, 
which might contain from four to five pounds, if my 
memory does not mislead me; and this, as already men- 
tioned, was entirely procured from the stump and roots 
which remained after the trunk was cut down, and which 
could be applied to no other use. 
‘Distilling houses, similar to that now described, are to 
be met with upon the estates of the different noblemen, or 
