6 
Murray  Red  Gum  and  Its  Kino. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\     January,  1897. 
Victoria,  obtained  no  less  than  7  ounces  of  oil  per  1 00  pounds  of 
leaves. 
In  Mueller's  edition  of  Wittstein's  work  we  find  the  following  : 
"  The  essential  oil  is  pale  yellow  to  reddish  amber  in  color  ;  it 
smells  and  tastes  like  that  of  E.  odorata.  Its  specific  gravity  is 
0-918,  and  it  boils  at  1370  to  1810  C." 
The  celebrated  essential  oil  firm  of  Schimmel  &  Co.,  of  Leipzig, 
Germany,  have  also  examined  this  oil  (vide  their  Bericht  for  October, 
1 891).  Their  oil  was  prepared  by  M.  E.  Mojon,  of  Algiers,  from 
trees  grown  in  that  country.  They  determined  the  specific  gravity 
of  their  sample  to  be  0-924  at  150  C,  and  the  optical  activity  -f-  120 
58'  in  a  100-millimetre  tube.  The  oil  has  a  powerful  odor  of  valerianic 
aldehyde,  and  is  rich  in  cineol.  E.  rostrata  and  E.  globulus  appear 
to  be  the  only  two  eucalyptus  oils  known  to  contain  valerianic  alde- 
hyde up  to  the  present. 
Quite  recently,  Mr.  W.  Percy  Wilkinson,  of  Melbourne,  has 
made  a  valuable  preliminary  investigation  of  the  Eucalyptus  oils  of 
Victoria  {Proc.  Roy.  Soc,  Victoria,  1893,  p.  195).  Amongst  others, 
he  has  examined  three  specimens  of  red  gum  oil,  and  following  are 
his  results : 
Sample. 
Specific 
Gravity. 
Specific 
Rotation. 
Refractive 
Index. 
Specific 
Refractive 
Energy. 
•9120 
+  870 
1  -4604 
•5072 
2  
•9216 
+  2-2° 
1  -4600 
•5014 
3  
•9222 
+  0-5° 
1-4607 
•5018 
None  of  them  gave  the  phellandrene  reaction. 
Eucalyptus  Rostrata.  Where  Found. — It  is  widely  distributed  in 
Australia,  usually  on  the  banks  of  rivers,  or  on  river-flats  subject  to 
inundation,  or  in  old  water-courses.  It  becomes  dwarfed  in  the  in- 
terior; but  it  attains  its  greatest  development  on  the  banks  of  the 
Murray  River,  where,  on  the  New  South  Wales  side,  there  are  mil- 
lions of  acres  of  land  which  are  periodically  flooded  (hence  the  name, 
"flooded  gum,"  often  applied  to  this  species),  and  hence  unsuited 
to  agriculture.  On  this  land  are  countless  millions  of  red  gum  trees, 
the  cutting  of  whose  timber  affords  a  large  revenue  to  the  New 
