— 112 — 



nave been effected the buyers have been compelled to pay higher rates. fc 

 A glance at the comparative tables on pages 114 and 115 of this Report, 

 showing the prices realized at the two series of auctions in 1911 and 1910, 

 will be sufficient to convince the reader that the oil-quotations are fully 

 warranted, and if account be taken of the probability that all the cheap 

 lots held over from former years have been worked up in the meantime, 

 and that the demand is growing from year to year, it will be hard to dis- 

 cover any logical reasons for a decline in prices. 



How irksome the sandalwood oil business must have become for a 

 few competing firms, especially abroad, is most clearly seen from the 

 fact that from time to time these firms attempt to sell off some part of 

 their output far below the current price, merely in order to avoid having 

 the oil (which generally bears evidence of having been distilled in the 

 most primitive way) left on their hands. Offers of this kind recur peri- 

 odically, but they remain without the slightest effect upon the market, 

 because, of course, the standard of price is set only by a perfect distillate 

 containing 94% santalol, such as is supplied by us. We have already 

 fully described the size and importance of our sandalwood oil department 

 in a previous Report. All through the winter our plant has been working 

 day and night, yet we have been unable to accumulate stock, which surely 

 proves in the most striking manner possible that the superiority of our 

 distillate is appropriately acknowledged by the consumers. According to the 

 reports at present available the future of the article can only be described 

 as very firm, and we think that we may with a clear conscience advise our 

 friends to choose the present moment for covering their requirements. 



There is, we think, little doubt that as soon as the wood from last 

 autumn's auctions is brought to the stills a further advance in the price 

 of oil will be unavoidable. The complaints by capsule-manufacturers of 

 depression of the prices of their product by extreme competition still 

 persist, and we strongly recommend our numerous customers in this 

 branch of industry to remember that the services of our research-laboratory 

 are gratuitously at their disposal whenever they are faced with competition 

 at prices which seem to indicate that the article thus offered is adulterated. 

 We are quite prepared to allow our friends to make what use they please of 

 our expert-opinion, if need be evenin a court of law. Possibly this repeated 

 reminder may in a few instances help to put a check upon the malpractices. 



We have recently had occasion to examine an East Indian sandalwood 

 oil taken from the capsules which had been sent to us for our opinion, 

 and found it to possess the following characters: di 5 o 0,9688, « D — 19° 30', 

 ester v. after acet. 152,3, equal to 67,6 "/o santalol, insoluble in 70% alcohol. 

 In this case it was obvious that there had been adulteration with cedar- 

 wood oil, inasmuch as, with a normal rotation, the sp. gr. was much too 

 low, and the solubility so imperfect that the oil was altogether insoluble 



