232 SPICES 



CHAP. 



OIL 



Mr. V. Cayla, in the Journal d 'agriculture tropicale, 

 (June 30, 1909, p. 164), gives some further account of 

 the Chinese cassia under the name of Le Cannelier. 



He says : " All parts of the plant bark, flowers, 

 branches, peduncles, and leaves produce essences of 

 which the properties are nearly exactly the same, and 

 the cinnamic aldehyde (which ought to compose 73 to 

 90 per cent of the essence) varies but little. The 

 essence distilled and exported to Hongkong from China 

 usually comes from a mixture of these parts. 



" A great deal of the Chinese cinnamon comes as bark 

 to Canton, whence it is shipped to Europe. 



" The leaves are chiefly used for distilling, flowers and 

 peduncles are not separately collected, and the bark 

 detached goes in with the leaves. 



" The still used consists of a metallic recipient fixed 

 in a brick furnace for boiling the water ; a cylinder 

 half full of leaves and branches stands above the 

 receptacle ; all is covered with a cap of a special form, 

 furnished at the base with a pipe in which is collected 

 the essence, afterwards cooled by passing through 

 receptacles arranged in stages. With more care im- 

 provements could be made on the Chinese method and 

 product. The receptacle is often made of lead, which 

 has this disadvantage, that some of the cinnamic 

 aldehyde becomes acidified and acts on the lead, 

 forming cinnamate of lead, which makes it necessary 

 for the extract to be purified before its use in pharmacy." 



The Chinese adulterate the oil with cedar-wood oil 

 and other similar oils, and for ten years used a mixture 

 of resin and petroleum, which was detected at length 

 by Schimmel Bros/ firm. The adulterated essence pre- 

 served the density of the pure essence, but possessed 

 a disagreeable odour. It would, of course, be easy to 

 procure nowadays cheap and convenient iron or copper 

 stills, such as are used for citronella and lemon-grass 

 distillation, and make a good pure extract of cassia. 



