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Canada balsam, also called Canada turpentine or balsam of fir, is a turpentine
Turpentine

Turpentine is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin obtained from trees, mainly pine trees. It is composed of terpenes, mainly the monoterpenes alpha-Pinene and beta-Pinene....
 which is made from the resin
Resin

Resin is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly Pinophyta. It is valued for its chemical constituents and uses, such as varnishes and adhesives, as an important source of raw materials for organic synthesis, or for incense and perfume....
 of the balsam fir tree (Abies balsamea). The resin, dissolved in essential oil
Essential oil

An essential oil is a concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants. They are also known as volatile or ethereal oils, or simply as the "oil of" the plant material from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove....
s, is a viscous
Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of the Drag of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness"....
, sticky, colourless (sometimes yellowish) liquid, that turns to a transparent yellowish mass when the essential oils have been allowed to evaporate.

Due to its high optical quality and the similarity of its refractive index
Refractive index

The refractive index of a medium is a measure for how much the speed of light is reduced inside the medium. For example, typical soda-lime glass has a refractive index of 1.5, which means that in glass, light travels at times the speed of light in a vacuum....
 to that of crown glass
Crown glass (optics)

Crown glass is type of optical glass used in lens and other optical components.Crown glass is produced from alkali-lime silicates containing approximately 10% potassium oxide....
 (n = 1.55), purified and filtered Canada balsam was traditionally used in optics
Optics

Optics is the study of the behavior and properties of light including its optical phenomena with matter and its imaging by optical instruments....
 as an invisible-when-dry glue
Adhesive

Adhesive or glue is a compound in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adhesion or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or Chemical synthesis sources....
 for glass.






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Canada balsam, also called Canada turpentine or balsam of fir, is a turpentine
Turpentine

Turpentine is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin obtained from trees, mainly pine trees. It is composed of terpenes, mainly the monoterpenes alpha-Pinene and beta-Pinene....
 which is made from the resin
Resin

Resin is a hydrocarbon secretion of many plants, particularly Pinophyta. It is valued for its chemical constituents and uses, such as varnishes and adhesives, as an important source of raw materials for organic synthesis, or for incense and perfume....
 of the balsam fir tree (Abies balsamea). The resin, dissolved in essential oil
Essential oil

An essential oil is a concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants. They are also known as volatile or ethereal oils, or simply as the "oil of" the plant material from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove....
s, is a viscous
Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of the Drag of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness"....
, sticky, colourless (sometimes yellowish) liquid, that turns to a transparent yellowish mass when the essential oils have been allowed to evaporate.

Due to its high optical quality and the similarity of its refractive index
Refractive index

The refractive index of a medium is a measure for how much the speed of light is reduced inside the medium. For example, typical soda-lime glass has a refractive index of 1.5, which means that in glass, light travels at times the speed of light in a vacuum....
 to that of crown glass
Crown glass (optics)

Crown glass is type of optical glass used in lens and other optical components.Crown glass is produced from alkali-lime silicates containing approximately 10% potassium oxide....
 (n = 1.55), purified and filtered Canada balsam was traditionally used in optics
Optics

Optics is the study of the behavior and properties of light including its optical phenomena with matter and its imaging by optical instruments....
 as an invisible-when-dry glue
Adhesive

Adhesive or glue is a compound in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adhesion or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or Chemical synthesis sources....
 for glass. It is amorphous
Amorphous solid

An amorphous solid is a solid in which there is no long-range order of the positions of the atoms. . Most classes of solid materials can be found or prepared in an amorphous form....
 when dried and it does not crystallize with age, so its optical properties do not deteriorate. It has poor thermal and solvent resistance, however. During World War II, balsam was phased out as an optical adhesive, in favour of polyester
Polyester

Polyester is a category of polymers which contain the ester functional group in their main chain. Although there are many polyesters, the term "polyester" as a specific material most commonly refers to polyethylene terephthalate ....
, epoxy
Epoxy

In chemistry, epoxy or polyepoxide is a thermosetting epoxide polymer that cures when mixed with a catalyst agent or hardener. Most common epoxy resins are produced from a reaction between epichlorohydrin and bisphenol-A....
 and urethane
Urethane

Urethane can refer to*Carbamates, compounds with the functional group RONHR'*ethyl carbamate, the trivial name of which is urethane*polyurethane in colloquial usage...
-based adhesives. In modern optical manufacturing UV
Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than x-rays, in the range 400 nanometer to 10 nm, and energies from 3 Electron volt to 124 eV....
-cured epoxies are often used to bond lens elements.

Some uses (traditional and current) include:
  • in biology
    Biology

    Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
     to conserve microscopic
    Microscope

    A microscope is an Laboratory equipment for viewing objects that are too small to be seen by the naked or unaided eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy....
     samples. The sample is sandwiched between a microscope slide
    Microscope slide

    A microscope slide was originally a 'slider' made of ivory or bone, containing specimens held between disks of transparent mica. These were popular in Victorian era England until the Royal Microscopical Society introduced the standardized microscope slide in the form of a thin sheet of glass used to hold objects for examination under a micro...
     and a coverslip and Canada balsam is used to glue the arrangement together and enclose the sample to conserve it;
  • in optical technology to glue together optical elements such as two prism
    Prism (optics)

    In optics, a prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refraction light. The exact angles between the surfaces depend on the application....
    s to form a beam splitter
    Beam splitter

    A beam splitter is an optical instrument that splits a beam of light in two. It is the crucial part of most Interferometrys.In its most common form, a cube, it is made from two triangular glass Prism s which are glued together at their base using Canada balsam....
    , or two lenses
    Lens (optics)

    A lens is an optics device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmittance and refraction light, converging or diverging the beam....
    ;
  • to fix scratches in glass (car glass for instance) as invisibly as possible.
  • in oil painting to achieve glow and facilitate fusion.


Canada balsam is soluble in xylene
Xylene

The term xylene or xylol refers to a mixture of three aromatic hydrocarbon isomers which is used as a solvent in the printing, rubber, and leather industries....
.

See also

  • Balm of Gilead
    Balm of Gilead

    Balm of Gilead is a healing compound made from the resinous natural gum of the balsam poplar, a North American tree species .It takes its name from the allusive phrase "balm in Gilead", referring to the balm or balsam carried from Gilead by the caravan of merchants to whom Joseph was sold by his brothers ....
    , a healing compound made from the resinous gum of the balsam poplar