— 56 — 



The speech reported above was followed by a discussion in which 

 several members of the Council of the Chamber of Commerce expressed 

 their agreement with Prof. Bosurgi's arguments, and laid stress upon the 

 necessity of petitioning the Government against the proposals sub- 

 mitted to it. 



Prof. Bosurgi, after expressing his thanks, moved the following re- 

 solution: — 



"The Chamber of Commerce of Messina, having heard the statements 

 of its member, Prof. Bosurgi, on the scheme for handing over to the 

 Camera Agrumaria the monopoly of the sale of essential oils, in a similar 

 manner as has already been done with citrate of lime; and in view of 

 the facts that the last-named monopoly has already been the cause of 

 enormous injury to the ^production of oranges and lemons and that the 

 monopolisation of essential oils would be a still greater mistake, and 

 would complete the ruin of the agrumi industry, approves the statements 

 made by the speaker, and hereby expresses the expectation that the Italian 

 Government and Parliament will not suffer any further departure from the 

 principles of sound commercial economy, and will withhold their consent 

 from the new proposals which it is sought to legalise; proposals which 

 are based merely upon the worthless assertions of a few visionaries, and 

 would precipitate the trade in and culture of agrumi into a crisis of which 

 the consequences would be incalculable." 



This motion, upon being put to the vote, was carried unanimously, 

 and it was further agreed at once to bring the resolution to the notice 

 of the Prime Minister and of the Minister for Commerce and Agriculture, 

 as well as to give it the utmost possible publicity. We are pleased to 

 assist in this object by publishing the above report. 



Bergamot Oil. It appears that in Italy inferior bergamot oils are 

 now brought up to the required ester -content by carefully "adjusting" 

 them with tri-ethyl citrate in such a manner that the addition does not 

 throw the physical constants outside the limit of the values which apply 

 to pure oil of bergamot. Dr. Kleber, of Passaic, N. )., in the course of 

 an examination of a shipment of bergamot oil received from Italy which 

 he made under instructions of our New York Branch, discovered that, 

 although presenting normal constants, the oils contained small proportions 

 of citric acid ester, a discovery which was confirmed by examination of 

 the oil in our Miltitz laboratory. Such an adulteration is particularly 

 objectionable because it cannot be detected by the ordinary tests, but 

 we have succeeded in devising a method which makes it possible to 

 ascertain an addition of this kind without difficulty; and below we give 

 particulars of this process. 



Two samples taken from the bulk of the suspected shipment and sent 

 to Miltitz behaved as follows: 



