Naval Stores

NAVAL STORES, a trade name for the products derived from the oleoresin (gum or pitch) of the pine tree. As originally used the term included all raw materials used in building and main taining sailing vessels as for instance, tar, pitch, rosin, flax, cordage, masts and timber. The possibility of obtaining a source of supply for these materials independent of Russia and the Dutch traders had considerable influence upon the British in establishing the colonies in Virginia. Flax, cordage and lumber are no longer classed as naval stores. The term embraces turpentine, rosin, pine oil, pine tar, pine tar oil, pitch and rosin oil. Charcoal from the destructive distillation of "lightwood" and pine needle oil are sometimes included but are not generally considered to be true naval stores products. The former is made from the wood and not from the oleoresin of the tree and the latter is an essential oil usually classed under drugs and chemicals.

From 65% to 7o% of the world's production of naval stores comes from the United States, half the rest from France, with Spain, Greece, Portugal, Mexico and India following in order and small amounts coming from Austria, Russia, Finland, Scandinavia, Philippines and Japan. The total value of the naval stores crop to the producers of the United States is about $5o,000,000. It is all produced in the southern pine belt and includes North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and a small part of Texas. American naval stores come from the long-leaved pine (Pinus palustris or Pinus australis) and the slash or Cuban pine (Pinus Caribaea). The French source of naval stores is the maritime pine (Pinus Pinaster) in the Landes.

There are three distinct methods of manufacture, and the prod ucts therefrom vary widely in their characteristics. By far the greatest amount of naval stores is produced by the gum method. The trees are "chipped" and the oleoresin which exudes from the wood in order to heal the wound is caught in cups, collected each week and transported to a still. The volatile material is distilled

off with steam and condensed as gum turpentine. The residue is gum rosin and is run out of the bottom of the still, strained through cotton batting into troughs and dipped into barrels. The rosin is graded according to colour and freedom from dirt—the lightest grades being X, WW, TVG, N, M; the medium grades being K, I, II, G and F; and the dark grades B and D.

DD

turpentine, DD pine oil, pine tar, pine tar oil and charcoal are produced by the destructive distillation of the dead wood and stumps left on the ground after the lumbering industry has taken off the timber. Long-leaved pine wood contains only 5% resinous material, but the dead wood and stumps may contain as high as and wood can be obtained in commercial quantities with more than 20% resinous material. Destructive distillation was originally carried out in the woods by covering a pile of dead wood with sod, clay, etc., and burning the pile with an insufficient amount of air to form complete combustion. The process is now carried out in well designed retorts where all volatile materials can be recovered.

The third method of manufacture is the so-called steam-distilla tion, solvent-extraction process, wherein the dead wood and stumps from cut-over land are ground up, loaded into steel retorts, steamed with live steam to obtain turpentine and pine oil and then extracted with boiling gasolene to obtain rosin. The produc tion of steam distilled wood turpentine, and wood rosin is equal to 20% of America's output of gum turpentine and gum rosin.

Turpentine and rosin in the United States are consumed in the following industries : paint and varnish ; soap ; rosin oil, greases and printing inks ; shoe polish and leather dressing ; motor cars, bug gies, wagons; sealing wax and insulation; oils and greases; lino leum, oil cloth and roofing; foundries and foundry supplies; shipyards ; pharmaceuticals and chemicals ; matches and wooden ware ; and various other fields.

See Gamble's Naval Stores Year Book (Savannah, Ga.).

(V. R. C.)