Chap. 23.] 
now EESIN IS PREPARED. 
363 
CHAP. 23. (12.) HOW THE EESIIS- CALLED ZOPISSA IS PREPAEED. 
We must not omit, too, that the Greeks call by the name of 
zopissa^* the pitch mixed with wax which has been scraped 
from off the bottoms of sea-going ships for there is nothing, 
in fact, that has been left untried by mankind. This composi- 
tion is found much more efficient for all those purposes in 
which pitch and resin are employed, in consequence of the 
superior hardness which has been imparted to it by the sea- 
salt. 
The pitch- tree is opened on the side that faces the sun, 
not by means of an incision, but of a wound made by the re- 
moval of the bark : this opening being generally two feet in 
width and one cubit from the ground, at the very least. The 
body of the tree, too, is not spared in this instance, as in others, 
for even the very chips from off it are considered as having 
their use ; those, however, from the lower part of the tree are 
looked upon as the best, the wood of the higher parts giving 
the resin a bitter taste. In a short time all the resinous 
juices of the entire tree come to a point of confluence in the 
wound so inflicted : the same process is adopted also with the 
torch- tree. "When the liquid ceases to flow, the tree is opened 
in a similar manner in some other part, and then, again, else- 
where : after which the whole tree is cut down, and the pith^^ 
of it is used for burning.*^ 
So, too, in Syria they take the bark from off the terebinth ; 
and, indeed, in those parts they do not spare even the root or 
branches, although in general the resin obtained from those 
parts is held in disesteem. In Macedonia they subject the 
whole of the male larch to the action of fire, but of the female 
5* Apparently meaning " boiled pitch." 
55 See B. xxiv. c. 26. 
56 This account has been borrowed from Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B ix. 
c. ii. The modern method of extracting the resin of tlie pine is very 
similar. 5? There is no foundation whatever for this statement. 
58 The pith of the pine cannot be separated from the wood, and, indeed, 
is not easily distinguished from it. Fee says that in some of these trees 
masses of resin are found in the cavities which run longitudinally with the 
fibres, and queries whether this may not be the *' marrow" or "pith" of 
the tree mentioned by Pliny. 59 js^g a torch or candle, probably. 
This division of the larch into sexes, as previously mentioned, is only 
fanciful, and has no foundation in fact. The result of this operation. Fee 
says, would be only a sort of tar. 
