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86 REPORT OF SCHIMMEL & Co. APRIL 1914. 
fancy-price the turnover was only a modest one, but the fact remains that this figure 
was repeatedly paid. As the winter advanced the market became decidedly flatter, 
for it is easily understood that there was little eagerness to continue to pay such a 
price, particularly so because the weather was normal, and the first condition for a 
favourable development of the plantations during 1914 was therefore in existence. At 
the end of February it was reported from the neighbourhood of Kazanlik that the 
weather was warm, and very favourable to growth of the young shoots of the rose- 
trees. Of course, this report brought about a further weakening .of the market. 
Account has still to be taken of the possibility of frosts within the next few weeks, 
which may destroy the at present favourable prospects, for the young shoots are very 
sensitive. The weather of the coming four or six weeks, therefore, will be the deter- 
mining factor for the crop. It has further been found that there is no truth in the 
statements of neglect of the plantations during the war; hence, barring unforeseen 
climatic troubles, the present year’s gathering may be expected to yield a good result. 
It is, in fact, high time for a return of favourable conditions of price in the rose oil 
business, for the unwillingness of consumers to continue to :pay the current prices 
has lately become much more marked still, and we have been repeatedly told already 
that customers will not readily abandon the employment of artificial rose oil now 
that, in the meanwhile, they have grown used to it. The existing conditions of the 
money-market in Bulgaria should assist in keeping the demands within certain bounds 
this year. 
In our April Report of 1918 (p. 88) we referred to a rose oil which had been adulterated 
with phthalic ester. C. Kleber’) reports on an oil similarly adulterated. In his case 
the specific gravity was extraordinarily high (1,061), and even when the sample was 
placed in ice-water no solid portion was separated out. The saponification value, which 
normally does not exceed 17, was here 295. From the saponification liquor considerable 
quantities of a salt crystallised out of which the acid constituents were identified as 
phthalic acid. Kleber concludes from the saponification value that the addition amounted 
to about 58 p.c. 
A Bulgarian chemist, C. Taramoff?), who has been examining samples of otto of 
rose, sold on the Bulgarian market, brings to our notice quite an extensive collection 
of adulterated rose oils. Twenty eight samples tested by him were all more or less 
adulterated; he even mentions one instance of a mixture which contained no rose oil 
at all. Among the adulterants, palmarosa oil and alcohol occupy the principal places; 
among others being geranium oil, gurjun balsam oil, and artificial stearoptene. Taramoff 
has set out the results of his investigations in table-form, and in another table he 
passes in review the physical constants of 30 different samples of oils and of the 
different adulterants used by the producers of rose oil. Here again, palmarosa oil 
plays the leading part. 
On the citronellol-content of rose oil, see p.121 of the present Report. : 
Rose Oil, Persian. The British Consul at Bushire, in his report on the Persian 
fiscal year 1912/12%) refers to the production of rose oil. The output in Persia, -he 
says, is limited to some 2500 miskals of 320 ounces annually and has hitherto only 
1) Americ. Perfumer 8 (1913), 171. — *) Perfum. Record 4 (1913), 416. — #) Dipl. and Cons. Rep., London 
No. 5255 (1914), p. 37. : 
