LONG. -LEAVED PINE. 
83 
where it is called Boston turpentine. Throughout the United States it is 
used to make yellow soap of a good quality. The consumption in England 
is great, and, in the official statements, the value imported in 1807 is 
465,828 dollars : in 1805, Liverpool alone received 40,294 barrels, and in 
1807, 18,924 barrels. It sold there in August, 1807, at three dollars a 
hundred pounds, and after the American embargo, in 1808, at eight or 
nine dollars. Oddy omits, in his list of articles exported from Archangel 
and Stockholm to Great Britain, the resinous product of the Pine, which 
has amounted to 100,000 barrels of tar in a year. 
A great deal of spirits of turpentine is made in North Carolina : it is 
obtained by distilling the turpentine in large copper retorts, which are of 
an imperfect shape, being so narrow at the mouth as to retard the opera- 
tion. Six barrels of turpentine .are said to afford one cask, or 122 quarts 
of the spirit. It is sent to all parts of the United States, even to the 
Western Country by the Way of Philadelphia, to England, and to France, 
where it is preferred, as less odorous, to that made near Bordeaux. In 
1804, 19,526 gallons were exported from North Carolina. The residuum 
of the distillation is rosin , which is sold at one-third of the price of tur- 
pentine. The exportation of this substance, in 1804, was 4,675 barrels. 
All the tar of the Southern States is made from dead wood of the Long- 
leaved Pine, consisting of trees prostrated by time or by the fire kindled 
annually in the forests, of the summits of those that are felled for timber, 
and of limbs broken off by the ice which sometimes overloads the leaves.* 
It is worthy of remark that the branches of resinous trees consist almo'st 
wholly of wood , of w'hich- the organization is even more perfect than in 
the body of the tree; the reverse is observed in trees with deciduous 
leaves: the explanation of the phenomenon I leave to persons skilled in 
vegetable physiology. As soon as vegetation ceases in any part of the 
tree, its consistence speedily changes; the sap decays, and the heart, 
already impregnated with resinous juice, becomes surcharged to such a 
degree as to double its -weight in a year : the accumulation is said to be 
much greater after 4 or 5 years: the general fact may be proved by com- 
paring the wood of trees recently felled, and of others long since dead. 
To procure the tar, a kiln is formed in a part of the forest abounding 
in dead wood : this is first collected, stripped of the sap, and cut into billets 
2 or 3 feet long and about 3 inches thick ; a task which is rendered long 
and difficult by the knots. The next step is to prepare a place for piling 
it : for this purpose, a circular mound is raised, slightly declining from the 
circumference to the centre, and surrounded with a shallow ditch. The 
diameter of the pile is proportioned to the quantity of wood which it is to 
receive ; to obtain 100 barrels of tar, it should be 18 or 20 feet wide.’ In 
* See Travels West of the Alleghanies, by F. A. Michaux. Paris, 1803. 
