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Turpentine (which is also called spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, terebenthine, terebenthene, terebinthine and, colloquially, turps) [2] is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin harvested from living trees, mainly pines. Principally used as a specialized solvent, it is also a source of material for organic syntheses.
With the demise of wooden ships, those uses of pine resin ended, but the former naval stores industry remained vigorous as new products created new markets. First extensively described by Frederick Law Olmsted in his book A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States (1856), [3] the naval stores industry was one of the economic mainstays of the southeastern United States until the late 20th century.
Zallen tells in detail how turpentine (and rosin) are produced as naval stores. [4] Pine trees especially in North Carolina were tapped for sap which was doubly distilled to make turpentine and rosin (aka resin)–hence the name tar heels. The trees were scored with a ledge called a “box” to collect the sap.
The fact that turpentine may spontaneously combust when mixed with nitric acid was discovered as early as the late 17th century by Frederick Slare, [2] [3] however it remained a scientific curiosity for centuries until it was proposed to use it for rocket-assisted take off during WWII.
After the end of World War II, the explosive manufacturing areas of the site were closed down and some areas of the site reopened as the Admiralty Materials Laboratory. A major part of the explosives site became a nature reserve [1] in 1981. Other parts of the site were converted into an industrial estate, and some may be used for housing.
According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Kentaro Awaya, gas weapons, such as tear gas, were used only sporadically in 1937 but in early 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army began full-scale use of sneeze and nausea gas (red), and from mid-1939, used mustard gas (yellow) against both Kuomintang and Communist Chinese troops.
The lack of suitable roads was made worse by the soft ground conditions and the deliberate flooding of the flood plains, which necessitated the use of amphibious vehicles. The few good roads were rapidly damaged and broken up by the constant heavy traffic that they had to carry during the assaults. The Germans had built three defence lines.
Snow later used a dot map to illustrate how cases of cholera occurred around this pump. [14] Snow's efforts to connect the incidence of cholera with potential geographic sources was based on creating what is now known as a Voronoi diagram. He mapped the locations of individual water pumps and generated cells which represented all the points on ...