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Camphor Oil. During the past six months no noteworthy alterations 

 have occurred in the Japanese camphor oil market. Only a few large 

 parcels have been brought forward since we covered our requirements for 

 a long time ahead, and these have mostly found buyers at full prices in 

 the United States. Light and heavy camphor oil, the by-products of our 

 safrol manufacture, have enjoyed a very active demand, because they have 

 recently been used chiefly as substitutes for turpentine oil or in the 

 manufacture of turpentine substitutes, the price of genuine turpentine oil 

 having risen to a figure never known before. We have repeatedly been 

 under the necessity of advancing the prices of our oils, and the fact that 

 they still continue to be in brisk request shows that for the present there 

 is no prospect whatever of any decline in the quotations. Our special 

 quality light camphor oil, known as "A", possesses about the following 

 constants: d 15 o 0,860 to 0,870, b. p. 170 to 182°, flashpoint at 763 mm. 

 press, about 53°. This quality has at intervals been in such request that 

 our works were scarcely able to keep pace with the demand. The working 

 up of crude camphor oil has attained so great an importance in our 

 establishment that, although our plant is on the largest imaginable scale, 

 we are only able to keep up with the orders by working night-shifts. 



According to a Japanese source 1 ) the net profits of the Formosan 

 Monopoly Bureau have increased in the year 1909 to 2 1 /-2 million Yen 

 (= over £ 250000, $ 1 250000), while the results for 1910 are expected to 

 be still better. Camphor from Southern China, of which the price at the 

 time of the Report (August 1910) was 140/- as compared with 145/- for 

 quality B and 140/- for quality BB of the Japanese article, was in poor 

 demand, while apparently the synthetic article had disappeared from the 

 market. 



According to further reports in the same paper a special commissioner 

 of the American firms interested in the camphor trade, Mr. Anderson, has 

 personally entered a protest with the Japanese Government against the 

 irregularity in the sales of refined camphor to the United States. A journey 

 to Formosa, undertaken by Mr. Anderson for the purpose of collecting 

 information, showed that a certain Japanese firm which had a concession 

 for the preparation of crude camphor only, was unlawfully engaged in 

 refining camphor. This led the American to enter a fresh protest with 

 the Japanese Ministry of Finance, accompanied by a threat of diplomatic 

 representations. Similar complaints are said to have been made of the 

 firm in question some years ago. An American trade-paper 2 ) devotes a 

 lengthy report to the subject, from which we gather that the firm concerned 

 (which is here also mentioned by name) has been preferred by the Govern- 

 ment for supplies of crude camphor at the expense of other Japanese 



*) Oriental Physician and Druggist, Yokohama 4 (1910), No. 36, p. 6. 

 2 ) Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter 78 (1910), No. 10, p. 7. 



