24 Report of Schimmel § Co. 1921. 



ascertaining the exact point by applying weak cooling. Pure cineole melts at +1.2°; 

 the less cineole the oil contains, the lower will be the solidification point. The authors 

 have given a table of the solidification points of mixtures of cineole (pure cineole + 

 hydrocarbon [pure, freshly-rectified oil of turpentine]) for a series of the usual con- 

 centrations, 65 to 100 per cent, of cineole. Since eucalyptus oil contains, in addition 

 to cineole and the hydrocarbons, several percent, of oxygenous constituents — aldehydes 

 and alcohols — they have determined the influence of these bodies by making additions 

 to their mixtures of cineole. They observed that the solidification point was very little 

 affected, raised or lowered, by these additions, and that the deduced values differed 

 by 1 per cent, at the most from the true cineole percentage. The authors state that 

 this method, which is distinguished by its great simplicity from all other methods, has 

 always given very satisfactory results in the course of several years. 



In oils which contain less than 65 per cent, of cineole the solidification method 

 was likewise applicable with success, provided that the sample be mixed with the 

 same amount of cineole before the determination. 



Want of time has so far prevented our testing this method; we shall, however, 

 revert to it. 



As regards addition products of Cineole and o-cresol comp. page 63 of this Report. 

 Fennel Oil. — As to Spanish fennel oils, cf. page 78 of this Report. 



Oil from a species of Ferula. — From the fresh root of a kind of ferula (Ferula 

 copalensis?) 1 ) which grows in Turkestan near Medeo, not far from Wjernyj (Semirjetchensk), 

 E. Swirlowsky 2 ) obtained by steam distillation 2 to 2.3 per cent, of a greenish transparent 

 oil which smelled of oil of turpentine and also of parsley and which possessed the 

 following constants: — di 7o 0.8650; [« D ] + 10.602°; n D20O 1.4760. The oil became colourless 

 on standing. t 



The mother plant grows at an altitude of 6000 feet in considerable quantities and 

 has a root, up to 3 kg. in weight like a horseradish, which above carries a bunch 

 of coarse hair. When the root is lacerated, a milky sap exudes smelling of French 

 turpentine. 



Geranium Oil. — According to an English abstract of a French report 3 ), the genus 

 Pelargonium comprises some 600 species 4 ), almost all of which have their home near 

 the Cape. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the geranium plant Pelargonium 

 odoratissimum.'WiMd., has been cultivated near Grasse in the south of France 5 ). In 1847 

 the plant was introduced into Algiers, at Cheragas; from there its cultivation spread 

 gradually. Forty five years ago the Pelargonium odoratissimum was introduced into 

 Corsica, in the Bastia and Ajaccio districts, and since 1880 Pelargonium capitatum. Ait., 

 has also been cultivated on the island of Reunion. Algiers exported in 1904 63660 kg., 

 in 1910 only 33800 kg., Reunion in 1900 9000 kg., in 1910 63000 kg. and in 1913 

 37000 kg. of geranium oil. The oil prepared in Grasse — in the last years it was only 

 1000 kg. annually — is said, in the report quoted, to be the most highly-esteemed (the 

 Spanish oil is in reality the finest); at the beginning of this year it was sold at 280 fr. 



*) This Fenda-species is not mentioned in the Index Kewensis up to 1910. — 2 ) Berichte d. deutsch. 

 pharm. Ges. 30 (1920), 478. — 3 ) Chemist and Druggist 93 (1920), 1334. — *> This figure does not agree with 

 Engler (Die Vegetation der Erde: Die Pfianzenwelt Afrikas, Bd. Ill, Heft 1, S. 708) and is probably too high. — 

 6 ) Cf. Gildemeister and Hoffmann, The Volatile Oils, 2 nd ed., vol. II, p. 614. 



