118 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 



act most satisfactorily for mineral separation, and their uses in this 

 direction are likely to be extended, so that it ought to be the endeavour 

 of all those distilling eucalyptus oils to place them on the market as 

 cheaply as possible, so as to make it difficult for other essential oils to 

 compete in certain industrial processes. At the present time, the 

 phellandrene oils, particularly, cost more to produce than seems 

 desirable, and it is necessary that they be distilled at a cheaper rate 

 if an export trade is to develop to such an extent as to be worthy of 

 Australia. For one thing, the leaves cost too much to collect, the 

 present price of 6s. or 7s. per 400-gallon iron tank of about 900 to 

 1,000 lbs. of branchlets making the oil expensive to distil. It is not that 

 the labour is paid at too high a rate, as wages go at present in Australia, 

 but that the method is crude, and efforts might well be made with the 

 object of cheapening the process of collection by introducing labour- 

 saving devices. It must be admitted that the question of labour is 

 the most serious problem affecting the industry at the present time 

 in all the States. By collecting the material in its native habitat, as 

 at present, numerous obstacles are met with, and to overcome these 

 also cost money. The formation of extensive plantations where only 

 one species is allowed to grow, and that the species the best for the 

 required oil, whether phellandrene, eucalyptol, or for perfumery or 

 flavouring purposes, would largely minimize these initial difficulties, 

 so that the material could be collected at a minimum of cost. The 

 distillation, too, ought to be carried out in large up-to-date stills, if 

 the oil is to be produced cheaply, discarding the ordinary 400-gallon 

 iron ship's tank now so extensively used. Whilst this primitive mode 

 of distillation maintains, however, as at present, these crude stills will 

 continue to be used, because the plant is cheap, and can be worked by 

 families or small, communities ; but when the industry becomes 

 systematized, these crude processes will largely disappear. We may 

 well look forward to the time when new uses will be found for the 

 various eucalyptus oils, and it is for Australians to foster the industry, 

 and so endeavour to provide material for these prospective manu- 

 facturing processes. It seems difficult for most people to understand 

 that the oils distilled from the various species of eucalyptus differ much 

 in constitution, and that the eucalyptol oils sold by chemists for 

 medicinal purposes are only one of many kinds obtainable from the 

 Australian " Gum Trees." 



Most pharmacopoeias at the present time demand oils rich in 

 eucalyptol and reject those in which phellandrene is readily detected. 

 It may eventually be shown that this is in some respects not altogether 

 a judicious procedure; and, while admitting that a minimum of 50 per 

 cent, of eucalyptol might well be demanded for oils to be used 

 medicinally, yet the rejection of oils like those obtainable from 

 Eucalyptus Risdoni, and a few others, appears to be unnecessary, as they 



