146 THE CHEMISTRY OF ESSENTIAL OILS
and phellandrene; dextro-camphor was also found, and a body which
was probably cadinene. The average composition of the oil is:—
Safrol..80 per cent.
Pinene.
Phellandreue
Dextro-camphor
Eugenol
Cadinene (?).7
0-5
2-5
This oil is used on an enormous scale for soap perfumery. Its
strong odour and low price enable it to be used for the very cheapest
of soaps, not only to give them an actual perfume, but also to cover up
the bad odour of poor quality fats. But its use has been very largely
diminished by the discovery that its active constituent exists in notable
quantity in crude camphor oil. By means of fractional distillation and
freezing (safrol melts at about 8°), this body can be extracted in a state
of almost absolute purity as a water-white liquid of specific gravity over
1 - 100. In this form it is, in the author's opinion, preferable iri every
way for cheap perfumery to the natural oil of sassafras, and its manu-
facture is now an enormous industry. There are on the market, how-
ever, many samples of so-called " artificial sassafras oil" which are
merely fractionated camphor oil, of specific gravity about 1
*- It
should be renumbered that these are often of low specific gravity and
contain not more than 50 per cent, of safrol, and are far less valuable
than the pure safrol. This body can, of course, be frozen out from
ordinary sassafras oil, but it is much cheaper to obtain it from camphor
oil. Safrol, which is identical with " shikimol" from oil of Hicium
religiosum, also finds an extensive use in the manufacture of heliotro-
pine (piperonal), which is one of its oxidation products.
Sassafras leaves also yield a small quantity (
- 03 per cent.) of an
essential oil, differing entirely from the oil from the wood. This has
also been investigated by Power and Kleber.
1
The oil obtained from
8000 Ib. of leaves was only about 2£ lb., and was of a light yellow colour
and agreeable lemon odour. Its specific gravity was *872, and its optical
rotation + 6° 25'. The constituents identified were citral, pinene, phel-
landrene, a hydrocarbon of the paraffin series, a hydrocarbon also found
in oil of bay and called by the discoverers myrcene, and the acetic and
valerianic (isovalerianic ?) esters of linalol and probably of geraniol, and,
possibly, cadinene. No safrol could be detected.
OIL OP LINALOE (CAYENNE).Cayenne linaloe oil, also known as oil of " Bois de Hose Femelle,"
and sometimes as oil of Azelia, is distilled in French Guiana.
The botanical origin of this oil has been a matter of considerable
uncertainty. The following account of the question is due to E. M.
Holmes
2
:—
" The fragrant wood from which this oil is derived was apparently
known in Europe in the early part of the last century, although it was
evidently confused with other woods. It has been named by various
writers as Bois de Citron, Bois de Kose male, Bois de Eose femelle,
Boia de Cedre jaune, Bois de Citron da Cayenne, etc. The older
authors, however, distinguished between the woods bearing these names.
Review, 14 (1896), 101. a P. and E.O.R. (1910), 32.