— 28 — 



immediately concerned an idea of the successful work carried on at the 

 Amani Biologico-Agricultural Institute. 



In the first part of his article Lommel reports on the camphor plan- 

 tations at Amani and the collection of the material; then he describes 

 the distilling plant and its working, mentioning the results obtained from 

 55 distilling charges of 100 kilos material each, and following up this 

 account by conclusions as to the rational cultivation and manufacture of 

 the article. The second part of his paper Lommel devotes to a summary 

 and criticism of the publications on the subject which have appeared in 

 other countries, and in the third he draws general inferences regarding 

 the ratio of prices of natural and synthetic camphor. 



The camphor-plantations at Amani are laid down partly as shrubberies, 

 partly as isolated trees. They are situated at 1000, 750 and 500 metres 

 above sea-level and are from 3^2 to 4 7* years old, the total number of 

 plants being about 3500. All the material which is cut off when the bushes 

 are trimmed and the young trees pruned is sorted out and distilled for 

 camphor. The still consists of a cylindrical vessel 1 m. high and 70 cm. 

 in diameter, with an internal perforated bottom and a copper distillation 

 tube. It has a capacity for a charge of green material varying from 50 to 

 100 kilos according to the manner of cutting. The condensing apparatus 

 belonging to the plant, which was of the ordinary modern type, had prov- 

 ed to be useless during the trial-tests, as the camphor blocked up the 

 condensing-tube, thus interrupting the distillation, and was, moreover, 

 difficult to remove. Hence Lommel found himself compelled to replace this 

 unsatisfactory condensing-apparatus by another, and he substituted for it 

 the ancient device which is still used in Japan, as described in Gilde- 

 meister and Hoffmann's "Volatile Oils", p. 372. 



The material, after being cut up small in a tobacco cutting machine, 

 is placed in the boiler, which has been filled with water up to the per- 

 forated bottom. After heating up, several hours always elapse before 

 the distillating process starts; the distillation being continued for five 

 hours, and the still being allowed to cool down overnight. At first the 

 yield was ascertained after every charge, afterwards at the end of every 

 fifth charge. Thus it was possible to distil weekly from Monday to Friday 

 inclusive, the condensing vessel being emptied on Saturdays. We refer 

 to the original articles for details of the 55 separate distillations, but the 

 aggregate result may be summarised somewhat as follows: Material of 

 average quality, consisting of chips and leaves, yields about l,2°/o cam- 

 phor oil. The proportion of solid camphor and of camphor oil varies 

 according to the intensity and the duration of the cooling process from 

 3:1 to 2:1. The oil, as shown by our own examination of several samples 

 submitted to us, contains about 75°/o camphor 1 ). Taking into account 



*■) Report October 1906, 20; April 1907, 21. 



