posed to a moderate heat, the tar will be seen to exude from them. I remain, sir,

Your obedient and very humble servant,

Bridport Harbour,.

Nov. 27, 1809.

produce one hundred to one hun. dred and ten barrels of turpentine.

April 15, 1792.

To C. Taylor, M D. Sec.

Way.

Thursday, April 12, 1792. Arrived at Wilmington, North Carolina, about one P. M. Observed on the roads the pitchpines prepared for extracting turpentine, which is doue by cutting a hollow in the tree about six inches from the ground, and then taking the bark off from a space of about eighteen inches above it, from the sappy wood. The turpentine runs from April to Octo ber, and is caught by the hollow below. Some of the trees were cut on two sides, and only a strip of the bark left of about four inches in breadth on each of the other two sides, for conveyance of the sap necessary for the support of the tree. A captain Cook, with whom I had been travelling, informed me that some trees would run six or seven years, and that every year the bark was cut away higher and higher, till the tree would run no longer; and I observed many that had done running, and they were in general stripped of the bark on two sides, as high as a man could reach, and some were dead from the opera tion; others did not look inuch the worse for it. I find the usual task is for one man to attend 3000 trees, which taken together would VOL. LIL

had before received was not perfectly correct: he told me he attended to six slaves for a year for a planter, and between the 1st of April and the 1st of September they made six hundred barrels of turpentine. The cutting the trees for the purpose of collecting is called boxing them; and it is reckoned a good day's work to box sixty in a day. The trees will not run longer than four years; and it is necessary to take off a thin piece of the wood about once a week, and also as often as it rains, as that stops the trees running.

While in North Carolina, I was particular in my inquiries respecting the making tar and pitch, and I saw several tar-kilns; they have two sorts of wood that they make it from, both of which are the pitch-pine. The sort from which most of it is made are old trees, which have fallen down in the woods, and the sap rotted off, and is what they call light wood, not from the weight of it, as it is very heavy, but from its combustible nature, as it will light with a candle, and a piece of it thrown into the fire will give light enough to read and write by. All the pitch-pine will not become lightwood; the people concerned in making tar know it from the apUB pearance

pearance of the turpentine in the grain of the wood. The other sort of wood which is used, after the trees which have been boxed for turpentine have done running, they split off the faces over which the turpentine has run, and of this wood is made what is called green tar, being made from green wood instead of dry.

When a sufficient quantity of wood is got together, the first step is to fix a stake in the ground, to which they fasten a string, and from the stake, as a centre, they describe a circle on the ground according to the size they wish to have the kiln. They consider that one twenty feet in diameter and fourteen feet high should produce them 200 barrels of tar. They then dig out all the earth a spit deep, shelving inwards within the circle, and sloping to the centre: the earth taken out is thrown up in a bank about one foot and a half high round the edge of the circle. They next get a pine that will split straight, of a sufficient length to reach from the centre of the circle some way beyond the bank this pine is split through the middle, and both parts are then hollowed out; after which they are put together, and sunk in such a way, that one end which is placed in the centre of the circle is higher than that end which comes without the bank, where a hole is dug in the ground for the tar to run into, and whence the tar is taken up and barrelled as it runs from the kiln. After the kiln is marked out, they bring the wood, ready split up, in small billets, rather smaller than are generally used for the fires in England; and it is then packed as

:

close as possible, with the end inwards, sloping towards the middle, and the middle is filled up with small wood and the knots of trees, which last have more tar in them than any other part of the wood.

The kiln is built in such a way, that at twelve or fourteen feet high it will overhang two or three feet, and it appears quite compact and solid. After the whole of the wood is piled on, they get a parcel of small logs, and then place a line of turf, then another line of logs, and so on alternately all the way up, and the top they cover with two or three thicknesses of turf.

After the whole is covered in this way, they take out a turf in ten or a dozen different places round the top, at each of which they light it, and it then barns downwards till the whole of the tar is melted out; and if it burns too fast they stop some of the holes, and if not fast enough they open others, all of which the tarburner, from practice, is able to judge of. When it begins to run slow, if it is near where charcoal is wanted, they fill up all the holes, and watch it to prevent the fire breaking out any where till the whole is charred. The charcoal is worth 2d. to 3d. British sterling, per bushel. It will take six or eight days to burn a tarkiln; in some places they burn it at such a distance from the shipping that they have very far to roll it, and even then sell it at from 3s. 6d. to 5s. British sterling, per barrel, sometimes taking the whole out in goods, but never less than half the amount in goods; from all which it will be reason. ably supposed that tar-burning

in that country is but a bad trade, as it must be a good hand to make more than at the rate of a barrel a day. The barrels cost the burner about 1s. 3d. British sterling, each. The tar-makers are in general very poor, except here and there one, who has an opportunity of making it near the water-side. Pitch is made by either boiling the tar till it comes to a proper thickness, or else by burning it. The latter is done by digging a hole in the ground, and lining it with brick; it is then filled with tar, and they set fire to it, and allow it to burn till they judge it has burnt enough, which is known by dipping a stick into it, and letting it cool: when burnt enough, they put a cover over it, which stops it close, and puts out the fire. Five barrels of green tar will make two of pitch; and it will take two barrels of other tar to make one of pitch.

N. B. The foregoing observations respecting tar and pitch, are copied from a memorandum made by me at Suffolk, in Virginia, on the borders of North Carolina, April 23, 1792, and are the result of the inquiries and observations I made on the subject whilst in Carolina.

Wilmington, N. C. April 13, 1792. In conversation with a Mr. Hogg, who had been settled there and at Fayette-ville before the war, I learnt that pitch-pine timber growing on the sands was the best, and that it was reckoned to be better if cut in the winter before the sap rises in the tree.

H. B. WAY.

SIR,

It affords me much pleasure to learn that my communication, on the extraction of turpentine from the Scotch fir, has been thought worthy of the consideration of the society; and it will be highly gratifying to me, if it should induce persons who have considerable plantations to try it on such a scale as to ascertain to what extent it might prove beneficial in this country. The experiment should be tried on trees so situated as to be conveniently examined every day, and the turpentine collected in the hollows removed as often as possible to prevent its being injured, or wasted by the rain. I think, that during the American war, some importations of turpentine were made from Russia and Sweden; and if so, it must have been extracted from what we call the Scotch fir, in a colder climate than this. The article called Venice turpentine, which is brought from Carinthia and Carniola, is extracted there from the larch tree; and it might probably answer to try to produce it from the larch trees grown in Great Britain, in the same way as I have collected the turpentine from the Scotch fir.

Respecting the wood of the Scotch fir being injured by the extraction of the turpentine from it, I should rather think that it would, on the contrary, be the better for it; as all those who use deals from Scotch fir, in this neighbourhood, complain that it is too full of turpentine to work well. The fact might be ascertained by the piece of timber which I sent to the society, as, if it was wished to preserve that part

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part in which the hollow is made, the back part, or nearly half of the tree might be sewn into boards without injury, and those boards might be compared with some from a tree taken down in the winter, from whence the turpentine has not been extracted. It must, however, be noted, that from the tree I have sent to the society, the turpentine has only been running one year, whereas, in America, they collect the turpentine from the same tree for three or four succeeding years. It has been supposed and asserted, that turpentine was only obtainable from the United States; but I have sufficient documents to prove, if required, that a very large quantity of it can be procured from East Florida; and I well remember, that about the year 1782 several cargoes of turpentine were shipped in the river St. John's for Britain; and though that country is at present in the hands of the Spaniards, no doubt arrangements might be made with the Spanish government for a supply of that necessary article from thence. It is my earnest wish, that through the medium of the Society of Arts I may render any information that may be serviceable to the interest of the united empire, and I will with pleasure furnish further com. munication on the products of Florida and its commerce, if desired by the society.

I am convinced that tar might be produced from the refuse of firs of English growth to advantage, and that a much better articlé could be made from them in Britain, than any imported from America. The Scotch firs, in England, from being planted at

greater distances from each other than they are naturally found abroad, have much larger knots, and greater numbers of them, than in Carolina or the north of Europe, and would therefore produce more tar, in proportion, from their refuse wood than the trees of those countries.

The pitch-pines of Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and the Floridas, grow to an immense size in what are there called pine-barrens, the soil of which is finer and whiter than the sand used as writing-sand in Great Britain, and the trees grow almost to the verge of high-water mark on the sea shores. I think it would answer a good purpose for the society to encourage by premiums the extraction of turpentine from British firs.

Improved Mode of preparing Phosphorus Bottles.

[From Mr. Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy ]

Phosphorus, cut into small pieces and mixed with quick lime in powder, answers the purpose very well. The phosphorus should be carefully dried by filtering paper; a thin slice being cut may be divided into as many pieces as can expeditiously be done, and each piece introduced into a small bottle, with as much lime as will surround it. Lime slacked in the

air, and submitted to a strong red heat, in a black lead crucible for twenty minutes, is in a good state for the purpose.

The bottle, when full, may be exposed, corked, to the radiant heat of a fire, till some of the pieces of phosphorus have assumed an orange tint; it will then be ready for immediate use.

But

the heating is not absolutely necessary if the bottle is not wanted for immediate use, and it will continue longer in a serviceable state.

It is almost superfluous to observe, in using the bottle, the mouth should be closed with the finger as soon as the match is withdrawn,

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ANTI