Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/382

 The refining heat melts the dross and the very spirit of the tree begins to bubble forth, is caught up by the steam from the water which is introduced and carried over into the great copper worm whence both flow, cooled and condensed by the surrounding water. But the two cannot mingle and in the end the floating turpentine is siphoned off and the residual water allowed to flow away.

By what alchemy of a subtler kind than any yet applied by man the tree draws from the gray Florida sand, from the black humus scattered through it, from the flooding rains of summer and the long glories of winter suns and the winds of space, this aromatic essence of pungency and fire no man can say. These are things for a deeper chemistry than that yet taught in the schools to fathom. So desired is it by artist and artisan that in a year more than three quarters of a million casks are shipped from Southern ports to the markets of the world, a massing of results that might well astound the Confucian alchemists of the elder race who first worked on the gum of the terebinthine tree.

After some hours of heat all the turpentine has passed from the retort and the spigot is turned at the bottom of the tank that the residue may run off. In the old-time rough working of boxed trees this was a dark, viscid liquid which soon