292 
ON ATTAR OF ROSE. 
There is still one other kind of adulteration, though it has actually no impor¬ 
tance and is only mentioned here for the sake of completeness. It is the addition 
of alcohol. Attar of rose as such, does not dissolve in alcohol of 85 per cent, 
(sp. gr. - 835). or rather the elaeoptene dissolves while the stearoptene separates. 
On mixing the two liquids one obtains a magma of little crystals. On the 
other hand it dissolves readily in absolute alcohol which might well be used for 
the purpose of adulteration, were not its odour immediately perceptible even to 
the uninitiated. For such a falsification, which however I never knew to occur 
in commerce, a salt of rosaniline may, according to Puscher, be employed as a 
test.* The addition of acetic acid or of fatty oils is of course of easy recogni¬ 
tion. 
The test of odour has been already mentioned. Of this criterion it is impos¬ 
sible to write as it is an affair of much unprejudiced experience,—impossible 
without standard specimens for comparison, but with them often decisive. Di¬ 
lution of the essential oil with an absolutely inodorous substance as pure sugar 
of milk, affords a means for detecting more easily an after-smell (Beigerucli ). 
One must also regard a certain sweetness which is quite foreign to the odour of 
geranium oil. 
Attar of rose is exported in bottles,f or when required in large quantities, in 
what are called cuncumas , that is to say flat flasks of tinned copper, having a 
short and narrow neck. These vary in capacity from 1 to 10 pounds ; they are 
sewed up in white cloth either at Kizanlik or when necessary at Constan¬ 
tinople, sealed, and provided with the Custom House ticket. 
Among the bottles must be mentioned the long, angular little vials, usually 
of minute capacity which travellers bring home as presents after a journey in 
the East. They hold perhaps about fifteen drops of oil, are tied over with 
bladder and red silk, and, what invests them with most value, are sold in the 
bazaar to the unwitting traveller at a high price. They often contain simply a 
few drops of geranium oil, the bladder being smeared with a touch of attar. 
Having detailed the history of rose-oil from its distillation to its transport 
into commerce, but little further need be said. Although as has been shown it 
is the Balkan that produces the attar of commerce, a small exception must be 
made in favour of the districts of Grasse and Nice in Southern France and of 
Algeria, where also attar is distilled. But the quantity there produced is so 
proportion (20 or 30 per cent. I believe) of another essential oil which accompanied it should 
be mixed with it, and that it should then be offered for sale as best attar. I remember the 
circumstance and had samples of each of the essential oils : that which was to be used for 
diluting the attar was the so-called Geranium Oil. D. H. 
*' The test here referred to depends on the solubility of a salt of rosaniline (as the oxalate 
which is known as Fuchsin ) in alcohol and comparative insolubility in an essential oil. If an 
essential oil contains even so little as one per cent, of alcohol, the admixture, it is stated, will 
be detected by the pink colour produced on shaking the oil with a few particles of the rosani¬ 
line salt. I have tried the test on the oils of lemon, lavender, anise, nutmeg, carraway, 
juniper, peppermint and rosemary, and have found them to acquire only a faint pink colour. 
The Ceylon grass-oil called Citronella became deep pink, as did the Turkish so-called Gera¬ 
nium Oil. Another grass-oil, that of Verbena, a sample of which distilled by Mr. Fisher of 
Singapore, I regard as of indubitable purity, was scarcely coloured by the test. Two samples 
of good commercial Turkish attar became of a bright pink when the rosaniline salt was shaken 
with them. Rose Oil collected from English rose water was entirely unaffected, as was a 
sample distilled at Grasse; another sample obtained from a manufacturer at Cannes acquired 
a considerable colour when treated with the test. From the few experiments here detailed, I 
conclude that oxalate of rosaniline may possibly be a test for the purity of attar of rose, 
indicating by the colour produced, either the admixture of alcohol or of geranium oil. But 
experiments should be made on a standard sample of Turkish Rose Oil, which unfortunately 
I do not possess. I). H. 
f The cut and gilded glass bottles in which attar is so often imported are said to be of 
German manufacture, I). H. 
