Pix abietina; Burgundy Pitch; F. Poix de Bourgogne ou des Vosges, Poix jaune; G. Fichtenharz, Tannenharz.
Botanical Origin—Pinus Abies L. (Abies excelsa DC.), the Norway Spruce Fir,[2301] a noble tree attaining an elevation of 100-160 feet, widely distributed throughout Northern and the mountainous parts of Central Europe, but not indigenous to Great Britain, though extensively planted. In Russian Lapland it reaches at 68° N. lat. almost the extreme limit of tree-vegetation, while southward it extends to the Spanish Pyrenees. In the Alps it ascends to 6,000 feet above the level of the sea.
History—In accordance with the definition of the London Pharmacopœias and the custom of English druggists the name Burgundy Pitch is restricted to the product of the above-named species. The pharmacologists of France use an equivalent term with the same limitations; but in other parts of the Continent Pix Burgundica has a wider meaning, and is allowed to include the turpentines of other Coniferæ. We here employ it in the English sense.
Parkinson, an apothecary of London and herbarist to King Charles I., speaks of “Burgony Pitch” as a thing well known in his time.[2302] Dale in his Pharmacologia (1693) mentions Pix Burgundica as being imported into England from Germany, and it is also noticed by Salmon (1693), who says “it is brought to us out of Burgundy, Germany and other places near Strasburgh.”[2303]
Pomet, writing in Paris about the same period, discards the prefix Burgundy as a fiction, remarking that the best Poix grasse comes from Holland and Strassburg.[2304]
Whether this resin ever was collected in Burgundy we are unable to determine. It may probably have acquired the name through having been brought into commerce from Switzerland and Alsace by way of Franche Comté, otherwise called Comté de Bourgogne or Haute Bourgogne.[2305]
Burgundy pitch is enumerated among the materia medica of the London Pharmacopœia of 1677, and in every subsequent edition. In that of 1809 it was defined under the name of Pix arida, as the prepared resin of Pinus Abies.
Production—Burgundy pitch is produced in Finland, in the Black Forest in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Austria and Switzerland. On the estate of Baron Linder at Svarta near Helsingfors, it is obtained by melting the crude resin in contact with the vapour of water, and straining. The quantity annually produced there was stated in 1867 to be 35,000 kilogr. (689 cwt.);[2306] that afforded by an establishment at Ilm in the same country amounted to 80,000 kilogr. (1,575 cwt.).[2307]
In the neighbourhood of Oppenau and on the Kniebis mountain in the Grand Duchy of Baden the stems of the firs are wounded at equal distances by making perpendicular channels, 1½ inches wide and the same in depth. The resin which exudes from these channels is scraped off with an iron instrument made for the purpose, and purified by being melted in hot water and strained. This is performed in three or four small establishments at Oppenau and the neighbouring village of Löcherberg. In this state the resin, which is opaque and contains much moisture, is called Wasserharz. By further straining and evaporating a portion of the water its quality is improved.
The manufacture in that part of Germany is on the decline, partly in consequence of the timber being injured by the wounding of the trees, so that the collecting of resin is not permitted in the large forests belonging to the governments of Baden and Württemberg. We have had the opportunity of observing[2308] that in the establishments in question French turpentine or galipot, imported from Bordeaux, as well as American rosin or colophony, are used in quantities certainly exceeding that of the resin grown on the spot.