238 SANTAlAcnjS. 



glycerine and solution of potash (5 per cent.), oil drops are also 

 distinctly seen in tlie parenchyme. I ascertained that 

 there is no corky membrane in the walls of these cells, like 

 that occurring in many other cases. From a physiological 

 point of view, the absence of corky walls of the cells of 

 the heartwood might be expected.'^ {Fharm. Journ. (3)^ 



xvi., 757.) 



Chemical comjwsition. — The wood treated with boiling alcohol 

 yields about 7 per cent, of a blackish extract^ from which a 

 tannate is precipitated by alcoliolic solution of acetate of lead. 

 Decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, the tannate yields a 

 tannic acid having but little colour, and striking a greenish 

 hue with a ferric salt. The extract also contains a dark resin. 

 {Pharmacographia,) The most interesting constituent of sandal- 

 wood is the fragrant essential oil. It is a yellowish, remark- 

 ably thick liquid, having a high specific gravity (usually more 

 than 0-960); and is a mixture of hydrocarbons and oxygenated 

 oils, boiling at a very high temperature. The specific gravity 

 of a pure sample of oil distilled at Ilunsur from the roots was 

 0-9745 at 15"=*-5. M. Chapoteaut {Bull Soo. Chim., sxxiv., 

 303) has shown that it is composed of two oils, one hoiliag 

 at 300° and the other at 310°, and that the composition of 



the oil boiling at 300° is C^^H'^^0, and of the oil boiling 



at 310° C^^H-^O. This chemist has been able to obtain 

 with the latter oil a series of ethers under the influence 

 of the different acids he brought to act upon it, and has 

 announced the important fact that the oil C'^H'^O is an 

 alcohol, the aldehyde of which is the oil C^^'H^^O. Phosphoric 

 anhydride absorbs water from both, converting them into 

 hydrocarbons of the formulae C^^H'^^ ^^^j C'«H''^*, respectively.. 

 By the Indian process only 2*5 per cent, of oil is obtained from 

 the wood, but the powerful apparatus of Messrs. Schimmel & Co. 

 of Leipzig affords as much as 5 per cent. 



Collection and Oommerce.^Mv. C. E. M. Russell, Superinten- 

 dent of Forests in Mysore, in a Report upon sandalwood (1889), 

 Bays :— " Sandalwood is the most important source of For^^* 



