222 
FIR TREE. 
of larch. These are generally cut about a foot 
square, and half an inch in thickness, which they 
nail to the rafter. At first the roof appears white, 
but in two or three years it becomes of a jet black, 
and all the joints are stopped by the resin which 
the sun extracts from the pores of the wood. Thus 
is the roof rendered impenetrable to the wind and 
rain. 
From this tree is obtained what we erroneously 
call Venice turpentine ; and it has been remarked, as 
a singular circumstance, that the inner part of the 
wood yields a pure gum, scarcely inferior to gum 
arabic. From Dr. Hunter’s notes on the larch, we 
learn that the turpentine flows, at first, without in- 
cision, and that when it has done dropping, the 
poor people, who wait in the fir woods, make in- 
cisions, at about two or three feet from the ground, 
into the trunk of the trees, and into these incisions 
they fix narrow' troughs, about twenty inches long. 
The end of each trough is hollowed like a ladle ; 
and in the middle is a small hole, for the turpen- 
tine to run into a receiver, which is placed below it. 
As the balsam runs from the tree, it passes along 
the sloping gutter, or trough, to the ladle, and from 
thence runs through the hole into the receiver* 
The people who gather it visit the trees morning 
and evening, from the end of May to September, 
to collect the turpentine out of the recei vers. When 
it flows out of the tree, the turpentine is clear, like 
water, and of a yellowish white ; but as it grows 
older it thickens, and becomes of a citron colour. 
