ar for remedies against the cough,
arthritic and pulmonic affections; are well known, and the chyrurgion
uses them in plaisters also; and in a word, for mechanic and other
innumerable uses; and from the burning fuliginous vapour of these,
especially the rosin, we have our lamp, and printers black, &c. I am
perswaded the pine, pitch and fir trees in Scotland, might yield His
Majesty plenty of excellent tar, were some industrious person employ'd
about the work; so as I wonder it has been so long neglected. But there
is another process not much unlike the former, which is given us by the
present archbishop of Samos, Joseph Georgirenes, in his description of
that, and other islands of the AEgaean.

Their way of making pitch (says he) is thus: They take sapines, that
is, that part of the fir, so far as it hath no knots; and shaving away
the extream parts, leave only that which is nearest to the middle, and
the pith: That which remains, they call _dadi_ (from the old Greek word
+Dades+, whence the Latin, _taeda_): These they split into small pieces,
and laying them on a furnace, put fire to the upper part, till they are
all burnt, the liquor in the mean time running from the wood, and let
out from the bottom of the furnace, into a hole made in the ground,
where it continues like oyl: Then they put fire to't, and stir it about
till it thicken, and has a consistence: After this, putting out the
fire, they cast chalk upon it, and draw it out with a vessel, and lay it
in little places cut out of the ground, where it receives both its form,
and a firmer body for easie transportation: Thus far the archbishop; but
it is not so instructive and methodical as what we have describ'd above.

Other processes for the extracting of these substances, may be seen in
Mr. Ray's _Hist. Plant._, already mentioned, lib. xxix. cap. 1. And as
to pitch and tar, how they make it near Marselles, in France, from the
pines growing about that city, see _Philos. Trans._ n. 213. p. 291.
_an._ 1696, very well worthy the transcribing, if what is mentioned in
this chapter were at all defective.

I had in the former editions of _Sylva_, plac'd the _larix_ among the
trees which shed their leaves in Winter (as indeed does this) but not
before there is an almost immediate supply of fresh; and may therefore,
both for its similitude, stature, and productions, challenge rank among
the coniferous: We raise it of seeds, and grows spontaneously in Stiria,
Carinthia, a