BIRCH-BARK, being bituminous, and consequently warm and emollient, is used in fumigations to correct a disordered air. The inner silken bark was anciently used for writing-tables before the invention of paper; though Ray rather assigns the office of paper to the cuticle, or outer skin, which peels off yearly. And with the outward, thicker, and coarser part, are houses in Russia, Poland, and other northern tracts, covered instead of slates and tile. The Indians make pinnacles with white cedar, which they cover with large flakes of birch-bark; sewing them with thread of spruce roots, and pitching them, as the ancient Britons did, with the willow. Pliny speaks of a bitumen actually procured from the birch tree.
Fungus of Birch, an excrecence growing on its trunk. It is astringent, and good against hemorrhages. When boiled, beaten, and dried in an oven, it makes excellent spunk or touchwood.