- 96 - 



When the oil, after being freed from ketones and aldehydes, was 

 treated with phthalic acid anhydride, nerol (m. p. of the diphenylurethane 50°), 

 geraniol (m. p. of the diphenylurethane 82°) and benzyl alcohol (m. p. of the 

 phthalic ester 106°) were found present. The oil further contains linalool 

 (m. p. of the phenylurethane 65°). . In the saponification liquor Kummert, 

 after removing traces of phenols (perhaps p-cresol) and lactones (perhaps 

 coumarin-like compounds) found acetic acid, salicylic acid (m. p. 156°) 

 and anthranilic acid (m. p. 145°). 



The fractions with the highest b. p. had a well-marked odour of indole; 

 they were mixed with three times their volume of ether and precipitated 

 with sulphuric acid. From the precipitate, decomposed by hot soda-solution, 

 Kummert isolated the methylester of anthranilic acid. The bases, when 

 freed from ester, were diluted in light petroleum with picric acid, giving 

 rise to a red picrate from which, upon decomposition with soda solution, 

 indole (m. p. 52°) and a small proportion of bases with an odour reminding 

 of pyridine were obtained. 



Wax Oil. Wax oil is an obsolete pharmaceutical preparation, obtained 

 by subjecting beeswax to dry distillation with from twice to six times its 

 weight of lime or, (but only rarely) without any addition whatever. Occasion- 

 ally it is still employed as a remedy for external use. Th. Ekecrantz and 

 E. Lundstrom 1 ) have recently investigated the oil. They took pure beeswax 

 and subjected it to distillation three times with twice its weight of lime, 

 when they obtained about 67,5% of a brownish-yellow oil, which at ordinary 

 temperature gradually solidified into a greyish yellow mass, studded with 

 crystalline leaflets. The saponified product, when distilled by steam, yielded 

 an oil of sp. gr. 0,7825 (15°), consisting of a mixture of saturated hydro- 

 carbons. The major part of the wax oil was not volatilisable with steam 

 and consisted of noneikosane, C 2 9H 6 o. Noneikosane is not an original 

 constituent of the wax but is the product of the myricylic alcohol which 

 is present in the wax in combination with palmitinic acid. 



Wintergreen Oil, Indian. Mr. Werner Reinhart, of the firm of 

 Gebr. Volkart, of Wintherthur, to whom we are already indebted for many 

 interesting communications on the production of essential oils in India, 

 has now added to our obligations by sending us a short account of the 

 preparation of Indian wintergreen oil, and it is our pleasant duty here to 

 express our thanks to Mr. Reinhart for this kindness. The parent-plant 

 of this little-known oil 2 ) is Gaultheria fragrantissima , Wall. (Gr. fragrans, 

 D. Don.; Gr. punctata, Blume; Arbutus laurifolia, Buch.-Ham., N. O. Erica- 

 ceae). This plant occurs gregariously over extensive tracts of the higher 

 Nilgiri-region, and is also frequently met with in the Palni and Travan- 



*) Arch, der Pharm. 248 (1910), 500. 



2 ) Gildemeister and Hoffmann, The Volatile Oils, 1st Ed., p. 589. 



