Oils and Fats. 



10 



[Jan. 1908. 



is steadily increasing, and as a result of the excessive prices that have been ruling 

 in the camphor market, the increased demand has to some extent been met by cheap 

 imitations of celluloid largely composed of shellac to which a very small percentage 

 of camphor has been added. 



EFFECT ON TURPENTINE MARKET. 



Patents for the production of synthetic camphor are being worked in 

 Germany, France, Switzerland, America and England, and most of the processes 

 are based on the production of pinene hydrochloride from turpentine, the pinene 

 hydrochloride being changed into isoborneol, which is oxidised to camphor. As 

 turpentine is the most important raw material on which the synthesis relies, it is 

 clear that the future of the camphor market depends very largely indeed on the 

 cost of turpentine. If turpentine were to remain somewhere about its present 

 price it is possible that in due course the value of camphor might recede to nearly 

 one-half figure now quoted for the refined product. Turpentine has been dearer 

 than it is at present, and it has been very substantially cheaper, but an increased 

 demand occasioned by the manufacture of camphor would doubtless have a 

 hardening influence on the market, and if this were aided by an increased demand 

 for the purpose of paint and varnish manufacture the cost of synthesising camphor 

 might be considerably higher than at present. These are possibilities which must 

 be taken into account, but unless some quite unforeseen circumstance should arise 

 to enhance the value of turpentine more considerably than the influences just 

 mentioned synthetic camphor could still be produced at very much less than the 

 present selling price of refined natural camphor. Theie is also the possibility that 

 cheaper methods of synthesis will be devised, and then Japan may stand in the 

 same position with regard to synthetic camphor as does India to synthetic indigo. 

 In appearance the new camphor is identical with natural camphor, and chemically 

 they are the same. There is this distinction, however, between the two products — 

 that the natural camphor rotates the plane of polarisation to the right, synthetic 

 camphor, like other synthetic substances, has no action on polarised left. This it 

 merely a technical difference which has no bearing on the use of the new product 

 in the industries.— Indian Trade Journal, Vol. VII., No. 87, Calcutta, 28th 

 September 1907. 



[With the drop in price that has lately gone on, it will be more difficult to 

 start manufacturing camphor to profit.— Ed.] 



THE SOURCES OF GARJAN OIL IN BURMA. 

 Only six of the fifty species of Dipterocarpus that are known to occur in 

 the tropical forests of the south and east of the Asiatic continent are said to be 

 indigenous to India proper. The others are more or less specific forms of the 

 Malayan type of forest vegetation and are distributed over Ceylon, Burma, the 

 Malay Peninsula, Siam, and the island of the Indian archipelago. But, whenever 

 they are met with, the Dipterocarpus are characterized by at least two marked and 

 constant features— (1) they are among the most lofty trees of their habitat, (2) the 

 fibro-vascular bundles of their wood secrete and hold large quantities of fragrant, 

 balsamic, oleo-resins. Of the eight species of the genus that are distributed over 

 the moist or dry forests of Burma, the Dipterocarpus alatus, Roxb. (Kanyin pyu or 

 white Kanyin), the D. laevis, Ham. (Kanyin ni or red Kanyin), and the D. turbinatus 

 Gaertn. f (Kanyin) yield the so-called ' Kanyin oils' ; while the D, Griffithii, Miq., 

 the D. incanus, Roxb., the D. obtusifolius, Teysm (In bo), the D. pilosus, Roxb. and 

 the D. tuberculatus, Roxb. (Eng., In, In ma or female In) are the accredited sources 

 of the ' In Oils' of Burma. Of these again, the Dipterocarpus turbinatus and the 

 D. tuberculatus are the most abundantly distributed species of their respective 



