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## ROSIN ON THE DOCKS, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

The city of Savannah is eighteen miles from the Atlantic coast on the Savannah River. In many ways it is a very important city. First, it is a railroad center. If you look at your map you will see that railway lines connect it with Atlanta, with Montgomery, Alabama, with Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, and with other cities. It is also the natural outlet for the products of a great part of the southeastern United States. Savannah has a good harbor but the river builds up great sand bars which block the channel making it too shallow for big ocean vessels to pass in or out. The Federal Government, however, has dredged and deepened the channel so that vessels drawing thirty-three feet of water can come up to the wharves.

Savannah is one of the first ports on the Atlantic seaboard in the amount of cotton it ships, and ranks first in the shipmen of phos-

Lat. 32° N.; Long. 81° W.

phate rocks used in making fertilizers. Its greatest trade however is in naval stores. In this trade, Savannah ranks first in the world.

The Atlantic coastal plain of the Southern States has great forests of pine, very valuable as lumber. From these are obtained vast quantities of pitch, rosin, tar and turpentine, the so-called naval stores. They received this name from the fact that in the days of wooden ships the seams were calked and made water-tight with these articles.

These barrels on the dock waiting for shipment are filled with rosin, a hard transparent substance which remains when common turpentine is distilled with water. It is used mainly in making varnishes and the cheaper grades of yellow soap. It is also used in making porous plasters.

Copyright by The Keystone View Company

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