Oils and Fats. 



12 



[July, 1911, 



may be assumed that this temporary- 

 falling off will be made good in the 

 course of the next few months. Accor- 

 ding to the information in our posses- 

 sion, the decline is apparently due to 

 the fact that the New York market 

 shows a tendency to hold aloof, for the 

 shipments to European ports show no 

 noteworthy differences. 



Java citronella oil has also been offered 

 plentifully, and although the prepara- 

 tion of this highly esteemed quality has 

 for some considerable time been concen- 

 trated in the hands of a few producers, 

 whose principal endeavour it is to pre- 

 vent over production at all costs, they 

 have nevertheless found it necessary to 

 show more pliability in their demands 

 than has been the case in recent years. 

 We are regularly in receipt of consider- 

 able supplies of a quality which answers 

 the highest requirements. 



As stated at some length in our last 

 two Reports*, attempts are being made 

 by certain interested persons in England 

 to supplement, or rather to replace, the 

 solubility test (Schimmel's test) of citro- 

 nella oil, which is now the customary 

 commercial test and which was intro- 

 duced by us, by a " geraniol test," under 

 the plea that our test does not afford 

 sufficient gurautee of a pure oil. The 

 geraniol test consists in determining the 

 acety ratable constituents of oil (total- 

 geraniol, geraniol + citrouellal) and it has 

 been proposed in one quarter that the 

 market price of Ceylon-citronella oil 

 should be based simply upon its total- 

 geraniol content, and in another that 

 the oil should be required to show a 

 minimum content of 60% or should be 

 divided, according to its total-geraniol 

 content, into three classes, containing 

 respectively from 56 to 60%, 60 to 64% 

 and 64 to 68%, and valued accordingly. 

 The question has lately been debated! 

 with renewed animation because we had 

 taken the liberty of writing a letter to 

 an English JournalJ pointing out the 

 difficulties which stand in the way of 

 the practical introduction of such a test 

 in Ceylon. The fact that in London 

 this attitude of ours has been made the 

 occasion of charging us with inconsis- 

 tency shows that we have been com- 

 pletely misunderstood, for we have 

 never asserted that the geraniol test is 

 not the best method of valuing citronella 

 oil. But the conviction that the value 

 of citronella oil depends in the first 

 place upon its total-geraniol content 

 does not blind us to the difficulties which 



* Report April 1910, 39 ; October 1910, 37. 



t Chemist and Druggist 77 (1910), 895, 912; 

 Perfume and Essent. Oil Record 2 (1911), 3. 



X Chemist and Druggist 77 (1910), 875, 



would probably accrue from the general 

 introduction of such a standard into the 

 Ceylon citronella oil trade, for the 

 reason that so far as our information 

 goes, the chemically-trained assistance 

 required for the purpose is wauting 

 iu the Maud. If this difficulty could 

 be overcome we should certainly 

 not be the last to rejoice, for it 

 would be entirely in accord with our 

 desire if this oil also could be tested 

 and sold on strict chemical principles. 

 And we should regard it as the best 

 solution of the problem if the Govern- 

 ment of Ceylon were able to arrange for 

 the official control of the distillation and 

 sale of citronella oil, and for the examin- 

 ation by Government-chemists of the 

 quality and purity of the oil destined 

 for export, because all the existing 

 malpractices would thus be put an end to 

 if necessary. But these are pious wishes 

 which iu all probability are hardly 

 realisable, for, as already stated, there 

 are not enough trained chemists in the 

 Island to carry out the tests, quite 

 apart from the expense which the 

 examination would entail and the con- 

 sequent increased price of the oil. This 

 is also the opinion generally held by the 

 large exporters of citronella oil in 

 Ceylon* who surely are best acqu- 

 ainted with the existing conditions, 

 and most able to form a correct judg- 

 ment. In answer to this it is said that 

 it has been possible to arrange that 

 cassia oil is to-day sold everywhere 

 according to its cinnamic aldehyde con- 

 tent, and lavender oil according to its 

 linalyl acetate content ; but these com- 

 parisons do not hold good, because 

 every layman can be taught in the 

 shortest possible time to carry out a 

 cinnamic aldehyde estimation, while the 

 ester estimation of lavender oil does not 

 meet with any difficulities iu the south 

 of France, where theie are plenty of 

 chemists or pharmacists who know how 

 to carry out properly the saponification 

 method. But if our information is 

 correct, the crucial point in the whole 

 question of the geraniol test is just this, 

 that Ceylon does not possess a sufficient 

 number of trained chemists or pharma- 

 cists to carry out the necessary examin- 

 ations, and that the layman can be of 

 no use in this particular matter because 

 he does not possess the knowledge 

 required for chemical work of this 

 nature. Besides this, it is necessary to 

 lay special stress upon the fact that in 

 determination of the total-geraniol con- 

 tent in citronella oil it is particularly 

 necessary always to work under the 

 same conditions, if comparable results 

 * Chemist and Druggist 77 (1910), 811, 



