— 78 — * 



Limette Oil. This article has been characterised by great scarcity 

 throughout the summer and it has repeatedly been necessary to raise the 

 quotations. We have very little stock left and are most anxiously expecting 

 fresh supplies. Our purveyor informs us that the crop has been gravely 

 injured by exceptional drought and that this has had the effect of very 

 greatly reducing the production for the present. 



Linaloe Oil. The only thing which can be reported concerning this 

 article is that Mexican linaloe oil has generally been firm throughout the 

 summer, and has maintained its previous value. The supplies were just 

 sufficient to meet the not very heavy demand, hence there has been no 

 accumulation of stocks in Hamburg, the principal centre for the article. 

 The large supplies of Cayenne linaloe oil in second hand, of which the 

 cost-price was far below the values of Mexican oil, have impeded the 

 sale of the last-named variety. But the brisk sale of linalol and linalyl 

 acetate, the odoriferous substances prepared from linaloe oil, has lately 

 caused a great part of these second-hand supplies to be cleared off, and 

 as according to the reports from Cayenne there does not seem to be any 

 prospect that the oil produced in that colony will again recede to its old 

 price-level, it is probable that sooner or later interest in the Mexican oil 

 will revive. The present quotation in Cayenne is 27 to 29 fcs., compared 

 with 19 fcs. at the beginning of the year. It is said that at the old prices 

 distilling does not pay, and now that a number of former producers have 

 been forced to leave the distilling- business in the hands of a few well- 

 to-do firms, the latter are of course trying all they can to keep the 

 market, if possible, from falling below the present level. We are doubt- 

 ful, however, whether they will long succeed in keeping it there. 



As long ago as the year 1908 we isolated in our laboratory from 

 Mexican and also from Cayenne linaloe oil a body possessing the formula 

 CioHi 8 2 , which even at that time, on account of its constants and other 

 properties, we set down as an oxide of linalool. After the publication of 

 a paper by N. Prileshaeff 1 ) on the oxidation products of unsaturated 

 compounds, in which among others a linalool monoxide is mentioned, we 

 were able (as will be seen from what follows) to show that the body 

 Ci Hi 8 O 2 was identical with the linalool monoxide of the author in question. Mj 

 Prileshaeff quotes the following data for the oxide prepared from linalool: * 

 b. p. 95° (25 mm.), d~ 0,9507, « D — 4,98°, n D16 o 1,4554, mol.refr. found 48,59, 

 calc. for Ci H 18 O2/ = 48,842. It is said that upon hydration the oxide 

 yields, in the place of a glycol, a doubly unsaturated aldehyde, b. p. 120 

 to 122° (25 mm.) with a semicarbazone melting at 138,5°. 



The following physical constants were ascertained by us at the time 

 for preparations derived from linaloe oil: — 



x ) Berl. Berichte 42 (1910), 4811; comp. Report April 1910, 154. 



