68 
SELECTED ARTICLES. 
turpentine is preferred, which possesses marked astriction, 
joined to a certain bitterness. 
Jacques Sylvius adds two errors to the incomplete and in- 
exact characters of Dioscorides and Galen. According to 
him, the best turpentine is of a bluish-white or greenish, 
transparent, and of the odor of the tree — sub bitter, biting to 
the mouth and larynx, liquid. Finally, by running over 
authors from Dioscorides to the present, we come to Pomet, 
before meeting with the true character of Chian turpentine. 
This substance, he tells us, is of almost solid consistence, of 
a greenish-white, almost without taste or odor, and especially 
destitute of bitterness, which distinguishes it from the other 
turpentines. Lemery, Tournefort, Chomel, and Murray, 
speak of this turpentine in almost the same terms, and the 
authors of our own time have scarcely varied from them. Yet 
many of them, as it will be easy to show by quotations, give 
still to this resin perfect transparency, a strong penetrating 
odor, and an acrid and bitter taste, or, indeed, an odor of citron, 
and a certain acridity : it is well, therefore, to settle definitely 
the true characters. 
In the first place, Chian turpentine is not transparent. I 
have found in some shops and collections a resin perfectly 
transparent, very consistent, and of an agreeable but feeble 
odor, which was labelled Chian Turpentine; but the golden 
yellow color of this product, and its marked bitterness, 
made me suspect the name, and having, in fact, broken the 
upper layer, which was hard and inodorous, I found, interiorly, 
the fragrant and sweet odor of Canada balsam. 
Chian turpentine is naturally very consistent, and it is often 
very solid. It is at least nebulous, and sometimes almost 
opaque. It is of a greenish-gray, or greenish-yellow color. 
Its odor appears very feeble in the air, but when it is enclosed 
in a glass vessel, this is retained sufficiently strong and agreeable, 
resembling that of fennel or gum elemi. It has a perfumed 
taste, devoid of all bitterness and acridity, and closely resem- 
bling that of mastic. Like mastic, Chian turpentine dissolves in 
all proportions in ether, and leaves, when treated by alcohol, 
