ae Formica of yellow tears of 0.5 to 1 cm. diaimetee débris was 
outside. The taste was persistently bitter. The drug. contained 7.36 pe 
BS 2.29 per cent. of ash. Twe a were picked out. of Mpg 
source of the drug in this manner ‘although it may be looked 1 upon as P 
i the mother-plant is a species of Ferula. — Ee 
‘ee . As will be known, three Ferula species are given as mother-plants of ‘the gi 
- of commerce, viz., F. ee Boissier, F. rubricaulis, Boissier_ and possi 
FF’. Schatr, Barezow2: ane Fane ee 
i Oil of Geranium. In 1914 the export of geranium oil from Reunion ‘amou 
to 70000 ko. as against 43000 ko. in 1913. The price rose from fr. 40,— to fr. 71. 50 
in August 1914, but since the outbreak of the war it receded to fr. 25.— and ‘ever 
fr. 20.— per ko., which induced the planters to restrict Progeaes very -considerabl ee 
pels x 
SF 
ae 
Oil of Ginger. In the course of an examination of a ginger oil wee: had bee 
freed from terpenes and sesquiterpenes, B. T. Brooks‘) found, besides citral, ‘methy 
heptenone, nonaldehyde, linalool, d-borneol, acetates, caprylates and a phenol (possibly 
chavicol), a sesquiterpene alcohol Ci;H2.«O, which imparts the characteristic mild odour | 
to ginger oil and to which he gave the name of zingiberol. From 150 gr. of ginger 
oil freed from terpenes and sesquiterpenes he isolated 24 gr. of zingiberol of a boilins 
point of 154 to 157° (14.5 mm.). When heated, this alcohol splits off water and form 
a hydrocarbon C,;He4 of the boiling point 255 to 257°, the zingiberene or isozingiberene 
from which isozingiberene hydrochloride (m. p. 169°) results when treated with hydro- 
chloric acid gas in glacial acetic acid solution. Zingiberol, when treated with gaseous 
hydrogen chloride or gaseous hydrogen bromide yielded isozingiberene dinydrochloride~ 
(m.p. 169°) and eee dihydrobromide (m. p. 176°) pees te 
- 
Oil of Gingergrass. A peculiar kind of gingergrass oil was offered fo us. recently 
from Hamburg. To the expert the oil revealed itself as a barefaced sophistication by 
its odour, for it really smelled like a turpentine oil perfumed with gingergrass oil an 
“we merely mention it here to show that even now, when turpentine oil is conspicu ; 
by. its absence, it must still be looked for as an adulterant. The constants were of 
course in keeping with the odour, specific gravity was too low, acetylation value 
much too low and solubility was quite indifferent: dis0 0.8927; ep +1197’; acid v. 
ester v. 12.1; after acetylation 63.5; it only dissolved in about 5 vol. of 90 per 
alcohot and did not yield a clear solution even with 10 vol. of 80 en cent. 
\ 
of 120 to 200 and dissolves in most cases in 2 to 3 vol. of 70 per cent, _ alco ) 
- invariably in 0.5 to 1.5 vol. of 80 per cent. alcohol. x ies hornet: ene ie 
It was not to be wondered at that the boiling point was in keeping with the t 
constants, nearly half the oil distilling at the boiling Rom of turpentir vil, 2 
wa 
ey : 1) Pharmaceutical Journ. 95 (1915% 356. — 2) See Gildemeister und Hoffmann, ay ai 
Bae vol. Ill, p. 395. — *) Chem. Ztg. 40 (1916), 18. — +4) Journ. Americ. Chem. Soc. 88 (1! 
