282 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
OIL 
Mr. V. Cayla, in the Journal d’ agriculture tropicale, 
(June 30, 1909, p. 164), gives some further account of 
the Chinese cassia under the name of Le Gannelier. 
He says : “ All parts of the plant — bark, flowers, 
branches, peduncles, and leaves — produce essences of 
which the properties are nearly exactly the same, and 
the cinnamic aldehyde (which ought to compose 73 to 
90 per cent of the essence) varies but little. The 
essence distilled and exported to Hongkong from China 
usually comes from a mixture of these parts. 
‘‘ A great deal of the Chinese cinnamon comes as bark 
to Canton, whence it is shipped to Europe. 
“ The leaves are chiefly used for distilling, flowers and 
peduncles are not separately collected, and the bark 
detached goes in with the leaves. 
“ The still used consists of a metallic recipient fixed 
in a brick furnace for boiling the water ; a cylinder 
half full of leaves and branches staods above the 
receptacle ; all is covered with a cap of a special form, 
furnished at the base with a pipe in which is collected 
the essence, afterwards cooled by passing through 
receptacles arranged in stages. With more care im- 
provements could be made on the Chinese method and 
product. The receptacle is often made of lead, which 
has this disadvantage, that some of the cinnamic 
aldehyde becomes acidified and acts on the lead, 
forming cinnamate of lead, which makes it necessary 
for the extract to be purified before its use in pharmacy.'^ 
The Chinese adulterate the oil with cedar-wood oil 
and. other similar oils, and for ten years used a mixture 
of resin and petroleum, which was detected at length 
by Schimmel Bros.’ firm. The adulterated essence pre- 
served the density of the pure essence, but possessed 
a disagreeable odour. It would, of course, be easy to 
procure nowadays cheap and convenient iron or copper 
stills, such as are used for citronella and lemon -grass 
distillation, and make a good pure extract of cassia. 
