TURPENTINE OIL AND ROSIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10277, 12 May 1919, Page 3

TURPENTINE OIL AND ROSIN

A NEW SOURCE OF SUPPLY. Turpentine oil and rosin aro already toeing produced on a commercial scale in maia 'by tho distillation of pine rosin. A new source of supply, irmcli though comparatively small may be valuable, especially lor Indian use, has now been found in Indian frankincense or olibanum. This material is obtained by tho natives by making incisions in tno stems of iiosweliia serrata, a tree widely distributed throughout the dry zone forests of Central India. The resinous substance which exudes from tno cuts contains a kind of turpentine, a resin and a gum. Investigations ol the methods of separating these constituents in a marketable form, as to their commercial uses and value and on tho methods of tapping tho tree, have been conducted since 1912 by the forest authorities in India in co-opera-tion with the Imperial Institute, the results of which have been published recently in a paper by R. S. Pearson, Forest Economist, and Puran Singh, Chemical Adviser at tho Forest .Research Institute, Dehra. Dun. Tho general conclusion reached, based on tho results of numerous trials carried out in India and in England by the Imperial institute, is that the turpentine oil is equal to good quality American turpentine oil, and that it could bo used in place of the latter in tho manufacture of paints and varnishes. The Imperial,lnstitute has also reported that the rosin would bo quite suitable as a substituto for pine rosin (colophony) in tho manufacture of varnishes, facing equal in value to grade "G" of American rosin.