— 26 — 



Cardamom Oil, Ceylon. See under Terpinene, p. 135. 



Cassia Oil. The firmer tendency of the market which we 

 announced in our last Report has since spread and finally an upward 

 movement has set in, such as had not been witnessed for years for 

 this article, which had been so long neglected. Above all, offers of 

 80/85 per cent, oil were for a time totally absent, and only a few 

 weeks ago was it possible to obtain firm quotations for shipment from 

 over there at the enormous figure of 5/6. Whether the upward race 

 of the quotations must be really attributed to lack of supplies from 

 the producing districts, or to speculative enterprise on the part of 

 Chinese middlemen, is a matter on which opinions differ; on the 

 strength of information received, though only meagre, we are inclined 

 to accept the first-named view. Whether with the above price the 

 highest limit has been reached is a question on which at present it 

 would not be safe to express even conjectures. 



It is not surprising that under these conditions the demand for 

 our 100 per cent, cinnamic aldehyde free from chlorine was very 

 brisk. Although we have nearly trebled our production, we were not 

 always able to meet the demand from the consumers, and at the 

 present moment we are still behindhand with large orders for America. 

 The advantages of this preparation over natural cassia oil are so well 

 known that we need not enter again into details on this point. 



Saigon cinnamon, a cinnamon called after Saigon, the most 

 important port of Cochin China, which in addition to Ceylon cinnamon 

 is officinal in the American Pharmacopoeia has been examined by 

 L. Rosenthaler 1 ). 



According to its external habitus and its anatomical constitution, Saigon 

 cinnamom is very closely allied to the Chinese kind; this applies very 

 specially to the younger pieces. Rosenthaler concludes from this 

 that Saigon cinnamon originates, if not from Cinnamomum cassia Bl. 

 itself, at least from a very closely allied species. 



The bark has a very fine odour and taste, and contains about 

 2,1 °/ essential oil; it therefore belongs to the cinnamon varieties 

 richest in oil. This is already shown by the fact that the interior, 

 when pressed with a hard object, takes a greasy lustre from expressed 

 essential oil, the same as the cut surfaces do when the bark is cut 

 with a knife. Rosenthaler gives no details of the properties of the oil. 



Oil of Cassie blossoms. According to E. Wildeman 2 ) 

 Acacia Farnesiana (L.) Willd., which is so important for the French 



1 ) Inaugural publication on occasion of the inauguration of the new Pharma- 

 ceutical Institute of the Strassburg University. Strassburg, autumn ^906. 



2 ) Publication de l'Etat Independant du Congo 1906. Notices sur des plantes 

 utiles et interessantes de la flore du Congo. II. Brussels, 1906, p. 105. 



