THE SASSAFEAS TKEES OF QUEENSLAND AND THE 

 CHEMISTEY OF CINNAMOMUM OLIVEKI (BaUj. 



By JOSEPH LAUTERER, M.D. 



{Read before the Royal Society of Queensland^ December 15,1894.] 



There are several trees in Queensland the bark of which has a 

 peculiar smell resembling oil of fennel. The farmers and 

 timber-getters take the bark to the chemists, and the chemists 

 say there is Sassafras oil contained in the bark and it would 

 pay better to take out a license for a still, extract the oil, and 

 sell it at a high price. The process of distillation is not difficult ; 

 according to Harris (Pharm. Journal, 1887, p. 673), most of the 

 <;ommercial Sassafras is manufactured in the interior counties of 

 South Carolina from the Sassafras tree (Laurus Sassafras) which 

 grows in dense thickets of small shrubs on worn-out lands. The 

 root is dug and washed, then chopped short, bruised with a 

 hatchet and put into a wooden barrel, the bottom of which is bored 

 through with several holes. The barrel is put endwise on a 

 wooden steambox with a sheet-iron bottom, the top of which is 

 bored through with holes corresponding to the holes in the 

 bottom of the cask, and with an auger-hole on the top through 

 which water is poured. 



The steam-box stands over a hole in the ground forming a 

 kind of oven wherein the fire is made. A tin pipe is inserted in 

 the top of the barrel and bent to go through a trough of water to 

 serve as a worm of the still. The steam goes from the box 

 through the roots contained in the barrel and from there through 

 the tin pipe. Water and oil swimming in it go over. A man 

 makes a clear profit of three dollars a day. 



