CINNAMON. 195 
are then placed on hurdles to dry in the sun. When sufficiently 
dry they are put up in bundles weighing about 30 lbs. each. 
The cinnamon thus prepared appears in commerce in the form 
of long brittle sticks of a pale yellow-brown cclour composed of 
numerous layers of bark, as thin as paper, rolled one over the 
other, the edges not overlapped but both edges rolled inwards, so 
forming a longitudinal groove the length of the stick. The taste 
is agreeably aromatic, warm, and sweet, and the odour very sweet. 
By distillation it yields about 4 to 1 per cent. of a very sweet and 
powerful essential oil. 
Cinnamon is re-baled on its arrival in London, and as the sticks 
are very brittle a quantity of chips and small pieces collect. These 
are collected and sold separately to druggists and distillers. They 
are often of excellent quality. 
The tips of the branches and the trimmings which collect are 
carefully dried and shipped to Europe, where they are distilled 
and the oil sold as “ Ceylon cinnamon oil.” The export of 
“ chips”’ from Colombo and Galle amounts to about 500,000 Ibs. 
annually, 
The leaves which are stripped from the branches are distilled 
in Ceylon, very seldom by the cinnamon growers themselves, but 
as arule by persons who pay the proprietor of an estate fifty to 
one hundred rupees a year for permission to use as many leaves as 
may be required for a still. From 80,000 to 100,000 ounces of 
“cinnamon-leaf oil”’ are annually distilled in Ceylon. 
Inspection and tasting are the methods resorted to for ascer- 
taiming the quality of cimmamon. The bark of Ceylon cinnamon 
is characterized by being cut obliquely at the bottom of the 
quill, whereas the other kinds are cut transversely. Inferior 
kinds are thicker, darker, browner, and have a more pungent 
taste, succeeded by a bitter taste. The most inferior quality of 
cinnamon bears such a resemblance to the best cassia that this 
last may be substituted for it or used as an adulterant to powdered 
cinnamon without being at once detected (of course when the 
bark is entire the difference is apparent). The following reactions 
are useful in examining powdered cinnamon :—Make a decoction 
of pulverized cinnamon of known purity, also a decoction of the 
suspected sample. Filter the decoctions when cold, and add to 
30 grammes of each one or two drops of tincture of iodine. 
The decoction of pure cinnamon is but very slightly affected, but 
02 
