130 
ON THE TURPENTINES. 
the Vosges, that during my residence in the country, I obtain- 
ed from a distance nearly all that I employed. In return, 
however, the little that I could procure upon these localities, 
rivalled the handsomest afforded by commerce. The trade 
in white pitch, in spite of the restrictions placed upon it by 
the administration, is more general. It is derived from the 
A. excelsa by the method which you have indicated. It is 
enclosed in fir boxes, made in the country, and exported under 
the name of pitch, but the inhabitants are not aware that it is 
their own which is sold under the name of Burgundy pitch. 
It is principally in Loraine and Alsace that this exportation oc- 
curs. 
" The black pitch which I send you has been made at Ronges 
Eaux, near Bruyeres, by the following mode : The wood of 
the trunk of the tree, Pinus sylvestris,\s cut into billets four 
or five feet long, placed in heaps upon a stone foundation, burnt 
with a smothered fire, and collected in boxes of fir wood. It 
is also obtained from the branches of the tree, but principally 
from the trunk." 
The turpentine of the fir which was sent to me by M. Chou- 
lette, isalmostasliquid as olive oil, which very well justifies the 
name of oil of fir, given to it in Italy. It is opaque and whit- 
ish, although the resinous juice in the vesicles is perfectly 
transparent, but it can be readily understood that the moisture 
of the torn portions of the bark becomes mixed with the resin 
and produces this opacity. When the resin is purified by filtering 
in the air and sun, or perhaps also by long standing, this mois- 
ture disappears, and the resin then forms a liquid a little more 
consistent, transparent, and hardly colored. Its odor is sweet, 
similar to the citron ; its taste is moderately acrid and bitter, 
so that Mathiolas and others are wrong in attributing greater 
bitterness to the turpentine of the fir than to that of the larch ; 
it is certainly the contrary which holds. 
The turpentine of the fir, when recent, is almost as turbid 
and liquid as that of the Balm of Mecca, but independently 
of the odor peculiar to each, which distinguishes them, they 
are not affected in the same manner by water. When a drop 
