288 
ON ATTAR OF ROSE. 
a perfume under the somewhat inappropriate name of Gill schamur (Rose 
dirt). 
As regards the produce of volatile oil, it is evidently extremely variable. The 
author thinks that the average percentage may be given as 004, though he 
cannot support the exactness of his estimate as some who profess to have 
counted the roses one by one. The annual produce of a harvest is from 800,000 
to 400,000 meticals or in round numbers from 3000 to 4000 pounds, a quantity 
which represents seven millions of pounds of roses and sets in motion a few 
thousands of stills. Returns which like that of the last season (1866) reach 
600,000 meticals are exceptional. 
As might be expected with so costly a production, the harvest and its results 
are dependent on a variety of influences. Of these the situation of the rose- 
garden is one of the most important, and it is doubtless the fact that the most 
productive are those occupying the southern and south-eastern slopes of the 
range. Plantations lying higher generally yield less attar and that of a quality 
that congeals more readily. 
The nature of the soil has an influence in so far as that when it is poor in 
humus and but seldom manured, the roses afford but little oil, and that more 
congealable or in other words richer in stearoptene. Currents of air, warmth 
and light exert an influence inasmuch as that if the rosebuds develope slowly 
by reason of cool damp weather, and are not strongly exposed to the solar rays 
when about to be collected, a rich yield of attar of low solidifying point is the 
result. But if at the time of gathering or shortly previous, the sky is clear 
and the temperature high, the quantity produced is diminished and the oil is 
more easily congealable.* The difference in the congealing point may certainly 
be taken at 2° R. (= 4‘5° Fahr.). 
The water used for distilling is at first (as stated previously) spring water, 
and afterwards the waste rose water. The use of hard spring water manifests 
an influence not only in the quantity but also in the quality of the oil yielded, 
as compared with that of river water or pure rose water. The author has him¬ 
self conducted distillations on the Balkan according to the above conditions, on 
which occasions when the operation was performed with spring water an oil 
rich in stearoptene, but less transparent and fragrant was obtained. 
As to attar of rose itself, the result of this distillation, the author confines 
himself in the present paper to that which relates to the production, falsifica¬ 
tion and examination of the drug, reserving the subject from a chemical point 
of view for a future communication. Pure attar of rose, carefully distilled, is 
at first colourless, but speedily becomes yellowish. Its sp. gr. at 18° R. (72’5° 
Fahr) is 087 ; its boiling point 229° C. (444° Fahr.). It consists of an elseop- 
tene and a stearoptene, the former the source of the odour, the latter of the 
property of congealing into a solid form. 
Pure attar of rose, once distilled, solidifies at a temperature of from 11° to 
16° C. (51 *8° to 60-8° Fahr.) or still higher. It is soluble among other things 
in absolute alcohol and in acetic acid. Its odour is rose-like with a peculiar 
honey-like sweetness, agreeable only when highly diluted.f The most usual, 
and by long practice also the most certain criteria of the purity of attar of 
rose, are 
* This fact is remarkable- In distilling roses in London I have noticed that it is when the 
roses have been collected on fine, dry days, that the rose water has most volatile oil floating 
upon it: when the roses have been gathered in cool, rainy weather, but little or no volatile oil 
separates. The attar of English roses has an odour by no means very agreeable ; it contains 
a large proportion of stearoptene and does not become fluid at a temperature much below 90° 
Eahr. D. H. 
f This is entirely a matter of taste. To many persons the odour of the undiluted attar is 
extremely delicious. D. H. 
