Chinese varnish

flows from the bark of the Augia sinensis ; it is a greenish yellow turpentine-like substance, smells aromatic, tastes strong and rather astringent, in thin layers dries soon into a smooth shining lac, and consists of resin, ethereous oil, and benzoic acid. It is soluble in alcohol and ether; and has been employed, immemorially, in China, for lacquering and varnishing surfaces, either alone or coloured. 2. Balsams without benzoic acid :— Copaiva balsam , balsam of copahu or capivi, is obtained from incisions made in the trunk of the Copaifera officinal is , a tree which grows in Brazil and Cayenne. It is pale yellow, middling liquid, clear transparent, has a bitter, sharp, hot taste; a penetrating disagreeable smell; a specific gravity of from 0·950 to 0·996. It di olves in absolute alcohol, partially in spirit of wine, forms with alkalis, crystalline compounds. It consists of 45·59 ethereous oil, 52·75 of a yellow brittle resin, and 1·66 of a brown viscid resin. The oil contains no oxygen, has a composition like oil of turpentine, di olves caoutchouc (according to Durand), but becomes oxidised in the air, into a peculiar species of resin. This balsam is used for making paper transparent, for certain lacquers, and in medicine. Mecca balsam, or opobalsam , is obtained both by incisions of, and by boiling, the branches and leaves of the Balsa mod end ron Gileadense , a shrub which grows in Arabia Felix, Le er Asia and Egypt. When fresh it is turbid, whitish, becomes, by degrees, transparent; yellow, thickish, and eventually solid. It smells peculiar, but agreeable; tastes bitter and spicy; does not di olve completely in hot spirit of wine, and contains 10 per cent. of ethereous oil, of the spec. grav. 0·876.