364 
Flint's natueal history. 
[Book XYr. 
only the roots. Theopompus has stated in his writings that in 
tlie territory of the Apolloniates there is found a kind of mineral 
pitch,^^ not inferior to that of Macedonia. The hest pitch^'^ 
everywhere is that obtained from trees planted on sunny spots 
with a north-east aspect ; while that which is produced from 
more shaded localities has a disagreeable look and a repulsive 
odour. Pitchy too, that is produced amid the cold of winter is 
of inferior quality, being in smaller quantity, too, and compara- 
tively colourless. Some persons are of opinion that in moun- 
tainous localities this liquid is produced in the greatest abun- 
dance, and that it is of superior colour and of a sweeter taste 
and has a finer smell so long as it remains in a state of resin ; 
but that when, on the other hand, it is subjected to boiling, it 
yields a smaller quantity of pitch, because so much of it goes^^ 
off in a serous shape. They say that the resinous trees, too, 
that grow on mountains are thinner than those that are found 
on plains, but that they are apt, both of them, to be unpro- 
ductive in clear, dry weather. 
Some trees, too, afford a flow of resinous juice the year after 
the incision is made, some, again, in the second year, and 
others in the third. The wound so made is filled with resin, 
but not with bark, or by the cicatrization of the outer coat ; 
for the bark in this tree never unites. Among these varie- 
ties some authors have made the sappium^^ to constitute a 
peculiar kind, because it is produced from the seed of a kin- 
dred variety, as we have already stated when speaking of the 
nuts^^ of trees ; and they have given the name of taeda^^ to 
the lower parts of the tree ; although in reality this tree is no- 
thing else but a pitch-tree, which by careful cultivation has 
lost some small portion of its wild character. The name 
sappinus'' is also given to the timber of these trees when 
cut, as we shall have occasion to mention hereafter. 
See B. XXXV. c. 51. He alludes to the bitumen known as asphalt, 
bitumen of Judsea, mineral pitch, mountain pitch, malthe, pissalphate. 
^■^ These particulars, borrowed from Theophrastus, are in general correct. 
^3 This is not the fact ; the essential oil in which the resin so greatly 
abounds, becomes volatile with remarkable facility. 
Most probably one of the varieties of the pine ; but the mode in which 
Pliny expresses himself renders it impossible to identify it with any 
precision. B. xv. c. 9, 
The name borne also by the torch-tree. 
«7 See c. 76 cf this Book. 
