LAUEACB^E 145
made of kiln-dried pine and consist of wooden boxes built up of staves,
with a pierced false bottom. The head is provided with a trap-door for
filling by, and a large door is fitted to the bottom of the tank, for the
purposes of emptying. To the upper part of the tank is fitted a copper
head, leading to a condensing coil immersed in cold water. Steam at
from 40 to 60 Ib. pressure is admitted between the true and false bottoms.
The stream of condensed products issuing from the pipe is caught in a
copper funnel with a very long spout which reaches nearly to the bottom
of a 20-gallon copper vessel. The oil being heavier than water collects
at the bottom, leaving the water to flow away at the top of the vessel.
A charge of 10 tons requires about two days to exhaust, and yields about
10 gallons of oil. In parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey a number
of small isolated distillers, often coloured men, carry on a remunerative
business in this oil. A most primitive still is used^ consisting merely
of a barrel with its head luted on, and its bottom pierced and standing
on a steam generator. A natural elbow-shaped branch, perforated
throughout, serves to carry the distillation products to a metal tube
placed in a trough of running water. The condensed products are
then separated in the usual way. Although the yield of oil is much
lower that when distillation is effected in modern apparatus, the process
is a payable one, as the capital necessary for such primitive distilleries
is very small. Properly treated, about 1 per cent, of oil can be obtained
from the root wood, the bark yielding from 5 to 9 per cent.
Pure sassafras oil has the following characters :—
Specific gravity 1-068 to 1082
Optical rotation + 1° 30' to + 4a
Refractive index 15280 to 1-5310
Acid value ......... 0
Ester „ 1 to 2
It is soluble in 2 volumes of 90 per cent, alcohol.
A sample fractionated by Schimmel & Co.^1 gave the following
results:—
Specific Gravity. Botation.
1-0066 + 5° 40'
1-0546 + 4° 36'
1-0764 + 3° 55'
10830 + 2° 57'
1-0877 + 2° 5'
1-0916 + 1° 30'
1-0930 +0°45'
1-0942 + 0° 12'
1-0905 - 0° 19'
10770 —
The principal constituent of sassafras oil is safrol, which is also
an important constituent of camphor oil. Safrol is obtained in large
quantities from the latter oil, and is sold in a more or less pure state,
usually mixed with the lower boiling fractions of camphor oil as " arti-
ficial sassafras oil".
The earliest chemical investigation of the oil was by Grimaux,
2
who
stated that it consisted of 90 per cent, safrol (q.v.) and 10 per cent, of a
terpene which he termed safrene, with traces of a phenol, which was
afterwards identified as eugenol. A recent investigation by Power and
Kleber^8 has shown that "safrene" is a mixture of the terpenes pinene
' Schimmel's Bericht, April, 1906, 62.^2 Comptes Rendus (1869), 928.
3
Pharm. Review, 14 (1896), 101.
VOL. I. 10208° to 216°
216° 2
221° 2
225° 2
2_'5° 2
226° 2
227° 2
228° 2
229° 2, 221°
, 2^5°
, 225°
, 226°
, 227°
, 228°
, 229°
, 234°
Residue