56 Report of Schimmel $ Co. April/ October 1917. 



On the mountains, the distillation is carried out on the spot in portable stills, 

 which are put up in the vicinity of a brook. Where there are fairly good paths, all the 

 material of the neighbourhood is united and distilled in larger installations. In France 

 as well as on the Balearic Islands, in Turkey, on Crete, §c., one has alway slimited 

 oneself to distilling the wild-growing plant, but with a view of successfully meeting 

 the Dalmatian competition, it is absolutely necessary to grow rosemary. 



The small distillers on the mountains use very antiquated stills. In the eastern 

 Pyrenees, the better-equipped distilleries are provided with copper stills, holding from 

 1200 to 1500 kilos and adapted for water and steam distillation. When distilling with 

 water, the stills are filled with it to the height of about 30 cm., and the distillation 

 takes 3 hours or so. Distillation with steam requires only l 1 ^ hours. The stills are 

 discharged by removing the exhausted material together with the sieve bottom, the 

 former being dried in the sun and then used as fuel. 



For some time past, the smaller Roussillon distillers seem to show more interest 

 for small portable- stills of modern construction, which hold about 100 kilos of the 

 fresh herb and used to cost 450 francs or so, before the war. The larger installations 

 of the eastern Pyrenees are equipped with 6 or 8 stills, the steam being developed in 

 a boiler. Eeach still does not contain more than 300 kilos of rosemary,, but it is well 

 distilled and the oil obtained is excellent. In Salces, near Perpignan, a factory works 

 the herb of an area of about 6000 hectares, covered with rosemary, thus producing 

 from 4000 to 5000 kilos of oil yearly. The steam is developed in a boiler with a 

 heating-surface of from 30 to 35 sq.m., the exhausted rosemary being used as fuel. 

 14 workmen are employed, 8 in day-time and 6 over night. Every 24 hours, about 

 8000 kilos of rosemary are distilled, yielding 30 to 40 kilos of oil or 0.38 to 05 per cent, 

 according to the season and the weather. The stills have a capacity of about 1500 litres 

 and can hold up to 1100 kilos of herb. Besides, a more complicated process is in use, 

 requiring two stills connected by means of a three-way-cock (alambics maries). After 

 both stills have been filled, steam is let into one for about lVa hours, when the 

 three-way-cock is turned so that the steam goes from the first still into the second. 

 After an hour, the distillation is interrupted and the steam let direct into the second 

 still. One distils for 17a hours and then conducts the steam into the first still, which 

 has meanwhile been refilled with fresh material. In this way, there is an economy of 

 steam and water, but much attention is required. 



The small Roussillon distillers obtain about 1250 grams of oil from 1000 kilos of 

 rosemary, corresponding to a yield of 0.125 per cent. Better results are obtained with 

 modern apparatus, as mentioned before. 



Sage Oil. Sage, Salvia officinalis, L. 1 ), a labiate spread over the whole coast of 

 the Mediterranean as far as Spain, grows on the mountains and hills of Croatia, Dal- 

 matia and the islands of Veglia and Cherso, in the Quarnero Gulf. The plant, which 

 seems to prefer lime-stone formations, is the only herb that grows on some of the 

 hills near Fiume. ■ 



It is collected for exportation in Dalmatia and on the Adriatic islands. Trieste is 

 the export centre, whereas Fiume exports but little. 



The best kind of sage, it is stated, grows near Malinska, on the island of Veglia, 

 where the surrounding district is known as the sage region. There it is gathered 

 before blooming and by cutting the stem rather than pulling the plant up by the roots, 



l ) Journ. Royal Soc. of Arts; Perfum. Record 7 (1916), 369. 



