ATTAR  OF  ROSE. 
139 
ployed  as  a  test.*  The  addition  of  acetic  acid  or  of  fatty  oil  is 
of  course  of  easy  recognition. 
The  test  of  odor  has  been  already  mentioned.  Of  this  criterion 
it  is  impossible  to  write,  as  it  is  an  affair  of  much  unprejudiced 
experience, — impossible  without  standard  specimens  for  com- 
parison, but  with  them  often  decisive.  Dilution  of  the  essential 
oil  with  an  absolutely  inodorous  substance,  as  pure  sugar  of  milk, 
affords  a  means  for  detecting  more  easily  an  after-smell  (Bieg- 
eruch).  One  must  also  regard  a  certain  sweetness  which  is  quite 
foreign  to  the  odor  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  Constanti- 
nople, sealed,  and  provided  with  the  Custom  House  ticket. 
Among  the  bottles  must  be  mentioned  the  long,  angular  little 
*  The  test  here  referred  to  depends  on  the  solubility  of  a  salt  of  rosan- 
iline  (as  the  oxalate  which  is  known  as  Fuchsin)  in  alcohol  and  compara- 
tive 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  de- 
tected by  the  pink  color  produced  on  shaking  the  oil,  with  a  few  parti- 
cles of  the  rosaniline  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  faiut  pink  color.  The  Ceylon 
grass-oil  called  Citronella  became  deep  pink,  as  did  the  Turkish  so-called 
Geranium  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  colored  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  en- 
tirely unaffected,  as  was  a  sample  distilled  at  Grasse ;  another  sample 
obtained  from  a  manufacturer  at  Cannes  acquired  a  considerable  color 
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  color  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. — D.  H. 
f  The  cut  and  gilded  glass  bottles  in  which  attar  is  so  often  imported 
are  said  to  be  of  German  manufacture. — D.  H. 
