— 131 — 
is not improbable. For the present ajowan seed has not yet been 
touched by the existing state of affairs. 
Shipments of Ajowan-seed from Bombay in 1903: — 
Vanillin. This product, which had suffered a fall in the value 
never dreamt of, has suddenly again come into favour owing to the 
well-known position of clove oil, which is used almost exclusively as 
the raw material. The lowest value of the leading brands was about 
36 marks, and if it is considered that since then the prices of clove 
oil have advanced more than ioo^/q, the present selling price of 
54 marks may still be called moderate. 
A communication contained in the circular of a Hamburg vanilla 
merchant stating that Tahiti vanilla is usually prepared with vanillin, 
was new to us. 
We recently had a vanillin under examination in our laboratory, 
which had been offered by a German firm to a firm in France at 
such a disproportionately low price, that it was looked upon with great 
suspicion. The examination answered the expectations: the preparation 
was greatly adulterated, as not less than about 25^/^ boric acid had 
been added to the vanillin. Previously adulterations with benzoic acid, 
antifebrin, sugar, acetisoeugenol, and coumarin had been detected. 
The series of adulterants for vanillin has now been enlarged by an 
interesting member. 
In continuation of Bourquelot's work on the oxidation of certain 
phenols by means of oxydases contained in some species of fungi, 
Lerat^) allowed the expressed juice of fungi of the species Ri^ssula 
to act for 24 hours, at ordinary temperature, on an aqueous solution 
of vanillin i -.50. Cloudiness occured very rapidly; it increased when 
a current of air was passed through, and was in the course of time 
deposited on the bottom in the form of a precipitate. This was almost 
insoluble in the usual solvents, but dissolved readily in alkalis, and 
melted at 302° to 305°. On further examination, the body was 
recognised as the dehydrodivanillin produced by Tiemann by the 
action of ferric chloride on vanillin; both substances yielded the same 
dimethyl ether of the melting point 135° to 136^. By treating vanillin 
to America 
„ Germany 
Egypt . 
8443 
98 „ 
100 cwts. 
Total 8641 cwts. 
^) Journ, Pharm. Chim. VI. 19 {1904), 10. 
