76 Report of Schimmel 8* Co. 1922. 



Powder Co. 1 ) The combined maximum worked per day is about 1000 tons of wood. As 

 Sherwood declares, it cannot be said that this industry has been profitable up to the 

 present time, but it may nevertheless be called upon to act an important part in future 

 in the production of naval stores. The wood chiefly used is the Southern long-leaf 

 pine (Pinus palustris).. The material may be divided in stump wood and top wood, the 

 former being richer in extractable products. It seems to be generally true that the 

 twisted grain wood is richer than the straight grain. The distribution in the roots is 

 also interesting. The lateral roots are very rich in rosin, turpentine and pine oil; the 

 tap root is soft and spongy and contains practically no valuable products. Good land 

 yields 8 to 15 tons of wood per acre, depending on the section of the country. The 

 milled wood is steamed for 3 to 4 hours in an extractor, when all the easily boiling 

 constituents (called turpentine by the author) and about half of the less volatile ones 

 (pine oil) are distilled off. This distillate, consisting of approximately 70 per cent, of 

 light and 30 per cent, of heavy wood turpentine oil is then fractionated. The steamed 

 wood is boiled with a solvent, generally gasoline, in order to obtain the rosin and the 

 heavy oil still left behind. The solvent and the heavy oil extracted are separated from 

 the rosin by repeated distillation. 



The light wood turpentine oil obtained that way distinguishes itself by its uni- 

 formity and has the following constants: — initial b. p. 154°, constituents boiling below 

 170° = 90.5 per cent, residue 1 per cent, dfg 0.865, n D15 . 5 o 1.469, flash point (Abel, 

 closed cup) 34°. This wood turpentine oil has not the fragrant, sweet odour of freshly 

 distilled gum turpentine oil. 



A high-grade commercial pine oil manufactured at Brunswick, Ga., had the following 

 properties: — boiling range 180 to 225°, di 5 . 5 o 0.935, n D15 . 50 1.479, residue 3 per cent> 

 colour light straw. According to Sherwood, the composition of pine oil, which resembles 

 turpentine oil very closely, is rather uncertain. We would mention therefore that, years 

 ago 2 ) we thoroughly investigated a yellow pine oil, i. e., a wood turpentine oil obtained 

 from the stumps, most likely from Pinus palustris, and found the following constituents: 

 /-«-terpineol, «- 'and ^-pinene, camphene, Mimonene, dipentene, /-terpinene, cineole, 

 /-fenchylalcohol, campher, /-borneol and methylchavicol. 



Pine oil when first produced was considered practically worthless. In later years, 

 however, it has become valuable in many ways, e.g. in the flotation process, as basis 

 of a variety of medicinal and desinfectant solutions and as a solvent in the rubber, 

 paint and varnish industries. 



The rosin obtained through the extraction is generally ruby red and consists, like 

 ordinary rosin, chiefly of abietic acid, C 2 oH 3 o0 2 3 ). The percentage found by analysis 

 were C 78.12, H 9.90 and O 11.98 per cent. Wood rosin is said to have an advantage* 

 over gum rosin because of its uniformity and cleanliness. 



Also in Germany stumps are used again on a larger scale for the production of 

 turpentine oil. As F. O. Koch 4 ) reports, the following yields were obtained from resinous 

 stumps (root wood of Pinus silvestris, L.) according to Franz Schmidt's methocj: 5 per cent, 

 oil of turpentine, 1 per cent acetone, 8 per cent, tar and 22 per cent, charcoal. Koch 

 then makes some remarks concerning the problem of the production of turpentine 

 and pine oils from stump wood, remarks which are not altogether reliable and invite 



*) In 1910 there were 30 plants in the U. S. A., where yellow pine was distilled, in addition to smaller 

 quantities of Norway pine and Douglas fir. Cf. Gildemeister and Hoffmann, The Volatile Oils, 2 nd edition, 

 vol. II, p. 98. — 2 ) Eeport April 1910, 103. — 3 ) The acid C20H30O2 is pimaric acid. — *) Chem. Ztg. 45 

 (1921), 699. 



