Am  jour.  Pharm.  i       The  Ran'  Material  Situation.  ?6i 
June,  1919.       J  oyj  1 
advance  after  the  close  of  the  war  chiefly  because  of  real  shortage 
and  to  some  extent  because  of  obstructed  distribution  owing  to 
transportation  troubles.  With  the  coming  of  another  crop  they 
should  be  easier,  but  there  is  at  this  time  little  encouragement  to 
expect  an  early  return  to  anything  like  pre-war  levels.  Sandal- 
wood, amyris  and  patchouly  oils  also  remain  abnormally  high  in 
keeping  with  the  raw  material  situation,  both  as  to  cost  at  primary 
sources  and  transportation  for  the  great  bulk  involved.  The  otto  of 
rose  question  remains  almost  as  much  of  a  mystery  as  it  was  a  year 
ago,  but  it  cannot  continue  so  much  longer.  Heavy  shipments  of 
other  products  have  been  permitted  to  come  out  of  Turkey  and 
Bulgaria  and  with  them  have  come  some  driblets  of  rose  oil  which 
the  shippers  have  doubtless  hoped  to  sell  at  famine  prices.  Unless 
all  conjectures  have  been  wrong  however,  there  must  soon  come  a 
heavy  flow  of  this  important  material  and  with  it  something  like 
practicable  values. 
Animal  musk  became  so  scarce  and  dear  in  China  that  its  im- 
portation was  brought  practically  to  a  standstill ;  but  here  too  we 
have  signs  of  material  improvement  and  there  are  shipments  on  the 
way  from  the  East  at  prices  which,  while  far  from  low,  are  at  least 
not  impossible.  Civette  was  extremely  scarce  for  a  time,  not  be- 
cause it  did  not  exist,  but  because  the  Mediterranean  embargo  made 
it  impossible  to  bring  shipments  through.  The  supply  is  now  some- 
what better  and  the  price  did  not  at  any  time  advance  unreasonably. 
Of  ambergris  no  catch  or  find  of  any  importance  was  reported 
during  the  past  year.  The  last  good  sized  lot,  something  over  100 
pounds  of  exceptionally  fine  quality,  came  to  this  market  two  years 
ago  and  you  will  be  interested  to  know  that,  notwithstanding  the 
war,  it  all  went  to  France.  The  replenishment  of  the  supply  in  this 
case  is  of  course  a  matter  of  fisherman's  luck  and  at  least  for  the 
present  we  shall  have  to  get  along  without  it. 
I  shall  not  detain  you  longer  with  an  extension  of  this  catalogue. 
The  placing  of  one's  finger  today  on  a  fact  which  was  elsewhere 
yesterday  and  will  probably  be  again  removed  tomorrow,  is  of  little 
value  except  in  following  that  particular  fact.  What  we  are  con- 
cerned with  is  the  general  aspect  of  our  question  rather  than  the 
particular,  and  I  think  that  we  may  consider  this  general  aspect 
fairly  presented  in  the  group  of  average  market  prices  cited,  which 
to  my  mind  indicate  that  we  have  probably  emerged  about  one  half 
