THE OIL IN CHERRY PITS. 



HAROLD L. MAXWELL AND NICHOLAS KNIGHT. 



It has been the subject of much speculation as to how the 

 Germans have been supplied with fats for food and to furnish 

 the glycerine from which the important explosives, dynamite 

 and nitro-glycerine, are made. They have been charged with 

 having extracted fat from their enemy dead to be used in making 

 the explosives. 



An important source of oil in Germany is doubtless the 

 cherry pits and it is quite likely that German thrift and effi- 

 ciency would not be slow to utilize that material. There is 

 sca^'cely any other country on the globe where the cherries have 

 reached so high a degree of perfection as in Germany. Cherry 

 trees are everywhere and the cherries are unusually large and 

 constitute a,n important article of food during the early sum- 

 mer. We thought it might not be devoid of interest to investi- 

 gate the oil content of the cherry pits. 



"We secured a quantity of the dried seeds of the common cherry 

 Primus erratus and by cracking we obtained fifty grams of the 

 kernels. These we crushed in a mortar, removed to a cloth sack 

 and placed in the flask of the extraction apparatus. The oil 

 which adhered to the mortar, as a result of the crushing, was 

 washed with ether and added to the contents of the flask. 



After the extraction had continued for fifty-six (56) hours, 

 the oil laden ether w^as taken from flask B and to it was added 

 the ether from flask A, in order to insure against the loss of 

 even the smallest quantity of the oils. The ether and oil mix- 

 ture was distilled at the lowest possible temperature. The boil- 

 ing point of the ether being 34.9° C, the mixture began to dis- 

 till at a slightly higher temperature, about 36° C. By fractional 

 distillation the oil was separated from the solvent. To insure 

 the evaporation of all the ether, the oil was placed in an open 

 beaker and heated on a water bath at 76° C. for three hours. 

 After this treatment, even the faintest trace of ether could not 

 be detected. 



The yield was unusually large. From the fifty grams we 

 secured 18.8 grams of the oils or a yield of 37.6 per cent. The 

 oils have the characteristic odor of almonds. The taste is pleas- 



