Chap. 22.] HOW THICK PITCH IS PREPARED. 361 
CHAP. 21. (11.) METHODS OF MAKING TAR HOW CEDRIUM IS 
MADE. 
In Europe, tar is extracted from the torch-tree by the 
agency of fire ; it is employed for coating ships and for many 
other useful purposes. The wood of the tree is chopped 
into small billets, and then put into a furnace, which is heated 
by fires lighted on every side. The first steam that exudes 
flows in the form of water into a reservoir made for its recep- 
tion: in Syria this substance is known as cedrium and 
it possesses such remarkable strength, that in Egypt the bodies 
of the dead, after being steeped in it, are preserved from all 
corruption.^^ 
CHAP. 22. METHODS BY WHICH THICK PITCH IS PREPARED. 
The liquid that follows is of a thicker consistency, and con- 
stitutes pitch, properly so called. This liquid, thrown again 
into a brazen cauldron, and mixed with vinegar, becomes still^^ 
thicker, and when left to coagulate, receives the name of 
Eruttian" pitch. It is used, however, only for pitching the 
insides of dolia^^ and other vessels, it differing from the other 
kinds in being more viscous, of a redder colour, and more 
unctuous than is usually the case. All these varieties of pitch 
are prepared from the pitch-tree, by putting red-hot stones, 
with the resinous wood, in troughs made of strong oak ; or 
if these troughs are not attainable, by piling up billets of the 
Numerous varieties of the coniferee supply us with tar, and Pliny is 
in error in deriving it solely from the torch-tree, the Pinus mugho of Lin- 
naeus; * 26 gee B. xxiv. c. 23. 
It is still obtained in a similar way. 
Fee remarks, that Pliny is in error here ; this red, watery fluid formed 
in the extraction of tars, being quite a difl'erent thing from " cedrium," the 
alkitran or kitran of the Arabs ; which is not improbably made from a 
cedar, or perhaps the Juniperus Phoenicea, called "Cedrus" by the two 
Bauhins and Tournefort. He says that it is not likely that the Egyptians 
would use this red substance for the purpose of preserving the dead, charged 
as it is with empyreumatic oil, and destitute of all properties peculiar to 
resins. 39 ggg B. xxi. c. 3, and B. xxiv. c. 23. 
This is impracticable ; neither vinegar, wine, nor water, will mingle 
with pitch. These resins, however, if stirred up briskly in hot water, be- 
come of a paler colour, and acquire an additional suppleness. 
*i Perhaps so called from Calabria, a country where the pine abounded, 
and part of which was called Bruttium, 
^2 Or wine- vats. 
