TAPPAHANOC, post village, and seat of jus tice, Essex county, Virginia, situated on the right bank of Rappahannoc river, by post road 109 miles a little E. of S. from Washington City, and 50 miles NE. from Richmond. N. lat. 58', long. 0° 10' E. from the meridian of W. C. The site is low and flat, and in summer the inhabitants are liable to agues and fevers. It is, however, a place of considerable trade, as even large merchant ves sels can ascend far above. The harbour at Tappa hanoe is about 50 miles above the open Chesapeake bay.
TAR, a dark brown resinous juice, distilled from the pine. The Baltic tar, with which Great Bri tain is supplied, is thus made. Pine branches cut into billets are built up on the slope of a hill, in large stooks, and covered with turf; they are then set on fire, and while they burn with a smouldering flame, the tar formed by the decomposition of the resinous juice, which PUPS to the bottom, flows through a small channel, by which it is collected and put into barrels.
The Switzerland tar is formed by heating billets formed from the trunk of the tree freed from its bark. The ovens, which arc about ten feet high,
and six in diameter, are made of stone or brick like an egg placed on its small end, and a gun-barrel is fixed at. its lower cud, to carry off the tar. The oven is charged by bundles of billets, the interstices being filled up with chips, and a layer of chips be ing laid uppermost. It is then covered in with flat stones, forming a kind of vaulted chimney. The dry chips at the top are set on fire, and the chimney being entirely closed up with a large stone, wet earth is heaped on the stones at top, and constantly applied wherever the smoke is observed to issue. The general product is about 10 or 12 per cent. of tar, of the weight of the whole charge. The red wood and knots are found to furnish about one fourth of their weight in tar.
An account of the quantity of tar obtained by the destructive distillation of coal, will be found in our article GAS LIGHTS, Vol. IX. p. 581.