AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 149 



main features with that given for Tosa, but the contrivance is 

 decidedly more primitive than here. 



As might be expected from the more careful manner of its 

 manufacture, Japanese camphor is much purer and more valuable, 

 and therefore commands a higher price than Chinese. It is a 

 granular, greyish white substance, not unlike the lumpy Firn 

 (coarse glacial snow) of our high mountains, or white, unrefined 

 sugar. It is obtained chiefly in Tosa. Since Kochi, the capital 

 of this province of the island of Shikoku, is in direct steamship 

 connection with Osaka, it reaches European hands mostly via this 

 city, and is shipped from the neighbouring town of Kobe (Hiogo). 

 The exportation of camphor from Nagasaki is scarcely one-third 

 as large as that from Hiogo. Still less is that from Yokohama. 

 Tamsui in the northern part of Formosa and Hiogo, are at present 

 the chief places for obtaining this drug, though the annual expor- 

 tation from them and other places varies exceedingly, having in 

 recent years ranged between 18,000 and 24.000 piculs — 1,080,000 

 kg. and 1,440,000 kg. — at an average price of ;^I2 per picul, or 4^-. 

 per kg. Before Formosa appeared in the market as the principal 

 producer of this article, a picul of Japanese camphor was worth 

 from ii"20 to i^24, while the present price is £\^ to £1^. In 

 the year 1876, Osaka-Hiogo exported 8,393 piculs of camphor, at 

 a value of ;^ 12 1,846; in the previous year, however, only half as 

 much. The total value of the Japanese shipments of this drug 

 amounted, in 1872, to ;^ 15 2,879 ; ^" the following year to only 

 £j 1,026. Since then the exportation of camphor from Japan has 

 increased considerably, amounting in 1882 to more than 5,000,000 

 yen. 



The properties and uses of camphor can be found in any text- 

 book of chemistry and pharmacy, and are so well known that it 

 would be superfluous to enumerate them here. But an application 

 peculiar to Japan and China seems to me worth mentioning, 

 namely, its general use for thinning lacquer. It is thoroughly 

 mixed with lacquer, while itself hard, by means of a spatula, 

 until it becomes fluid, and thins the lacquer also. And there can 

 be no doubt, either, that the brownish camphor-oil {01. campJiorcE 

 japonicuni), which appears as a subsidiary product of camphor 

 manufacture, is the primary product, from which camphor (Cio Hjg O) 

 is formed by oxidation. It is a substance that bleaches gradually 

 in the light, and resembles turpentine-oil, not only in odour, but 

 also in chemical composition (Cjo Hj^). Bornein, or Borneo cam- 

 phor-oil, agrees with it in this. The close relationship of borneol 

 (Cjo Hjg O) with Japanese camphor, and the easy convertibility of 

 the one into the other, have been shown long ago.^ Camphor-oil 

 is an excellent solvent for the solid camphor, but is not used for 

 this purpose in any other technical or pharmaceutical way, but 



^ Of recent treatises on this subject, see Kachler and Spitzer in the "Sitz- 

 berichte der Wiener /\kademie," Band 80, pp. 197-216. 



