96 ODOROGRAPHIA. 
JACINTHE OR HYACINTH. 
This plant does not appear to be commercially grown for per- 
fumery purposes, the extracts sold under its name being com- 
pounded from the extracts of other flowers or prepared artificially 
by the processes next described. 
The delicate perfume of hyacinths is ethereal, suggestive of 
organic ethers. There are many ethers and synthetically prepared 
compounds resembling the odours of flowers, but some of them 
are also suggestive of ‘‘ chemicals,” the products being crudely 
manufactured or insufficiently purified from minute traces of 
chemicals employed in their fabrication. All synthetical products, 
especially those in which chlorine is employed in the process, 
should therefore be thoroughly purified from all remnants of adhe- 
rent reagents employed. 
It has been known to chemists for many years that an oil 
obtained by the oxidation of turpentine resembles the perfume of 
hyacinths, but it is only recently that this oil has been produced 
commercially for use in perfumery. 
For the production of this oil it is necessary first to prepare 
Terpine-hydrate, C,H 2O2+H,0, known in modern chemical 
language as Dipentenylene glycol. Hight volumes of oil of turpen- 
tine are mixed with two volumes of nitric acid, sp. gr. 1:25-1°30, 
and one to six volumes of alcohol. The mixture is shaken fre- 
quently during the first few days and then left to itself in shallow 
vessels for several weeks. Brown crystals are thereby formed, 
which must be pressed and then re-crystallized from boiling water 
with addition of animal charcoal. 
Another process recommended by Hempel* says :—“ Right 
parts of oil of turpentine are mixed with two parts of alcohol and 
two parts of nitric acid, sp. gr. 1-25-1°30, in flat basins. After a 
few days the mother-liquor is poured off from the crystals which 
have already separated, and is neutralized with an alkali, after 
which treatment another crop of crystals separates out t. The 
preparation only succeeds at the cool seasons of the year, as in 
summer a resinous mass is usually obtained f. 
* Ann, Chem. Pharm. xxx. p. 71. 
+ Wallach, Ann, Chem. Pharm. cexxvii. p. 284. 
t Ibid. cexxx. p. 248. 
Ne 
