Sidonian; the perfume called Panathenaicum
is made at Athens; and those called
Metopian and Mendesian are prepared with the
greatest skill in Egypt. Still the superior
excellence of each perfume is owing to the
purveyors, and the materials, and the artists,
and not to the place itself."

The ancients indulged in perfumes much
more luxuriously than we do. Mr. Sidney
Whiting, in his imaginative and scholarly
production, Heliondé, or Adventures in
the Sun, fancifully describes the inhabitants
of that orb as sustaining life solely
upon sweet scents. The more prosaic Mr.
Piesse tells us the manufacturing and trade
secrets of perfumes.

There are, it appears, four modes of obtaining
the perfume of plants and flowers. The first is
by expression—a mode only adopted when the
plant is very prolific in its volatile or essential
oil; that is, in its odour. The outer rind or
pellicle of the lemon, orange, citron, and a few
others of the same class, is chiefly subjected to
this process. The parts to be expressed are
put into a cloth bag, and placed under a screw
press; sometimes laid, without any bag at
all, on the perforated plate through which
the oil is to run. When all the oil is
expressed, it is left standing in a quiet place
for some time, to allow it to separate itself
from the water which came with it. It is
then poured off and strained.

The second method is by distillation— a
method used for lavender, cloves, seeds, herbs,
but not for the rarer flowers, the odours
of which are lost by heat; only to be gained
indeed by loving contact and careful influence.
The only notable fact in this process of
distillation is that, in France, they apply fire
directly to the still; in England, they distil
by steam. Excepting for this difference, this
mode of chemical manipulation is too well
known to need description here. The fire
applied directly to the still sometimes gives
a burnt odour to the distillate, which is
not entirely disagreeable in some combinations.

Maceration is the third process. Purified
beef or deer suet is placed with purified lard
in a clean metal or porcelain pan, a bain
Marie, or steam pan. When melted, the
flowers required to be used are thrown in
and left to remain from twelve to forty-eight
hours; the liquid fat is then strained, and
fresh flowers are added. This is repeated as
often as is necessary; and the pomatum
obtained therefrom is known as six, twelve,
eighteen, or twenty-four, according to the
strength of the odour. For perfumed oil the
same process is gone through; fine olive oil
only being substituted for lard and suet. The
oils made thus are called Huille antique à la
rose, à la fleur d'orange, &c. Orange, rose,
and cassie, are prepared thus; violet and
réséda are begun thus, and finished by
enfleurage.

This is the daintiest method of all.
Enfleurage, or absorption, is very little practised
in England, though uniformly used in France
for all the finest odours. Square frames with
glass bottoms, called châsses, are spread with
a layer of fat about a quarter of an inch
thick; then sprinkled abundantly with flowers.
They are suffered to remain forty-eight hours,
when a fresh supply of the spent and
exhausted blossoms is given; which process is
repeated over and over again until the pomatum
is sufficiently powerfully scented. For
perfumed oil, coarse cotton cloths are saturated
with fine olive oil, and laid on frames of wire
gauze. These are treated in the same manner
as the châsses; and, when thoroughly
perfumed, are placed under a screw press and
the oil wrung from them—rich, sweet, flowery
oil, such as Juno or Venus might have used,
and been proud of, too.

The south of Europe is the perfumer's
Dorado. Cannes and Nice are the principal
flower-growing places; for there the flower
farmer may have any climate he will within
a short distance one of the other, and so
produce on the mild sea-coast the cassie
which one night's frost further inland would
destroy for a whole season; while, at the
foot of the mountains, his violets are sweeter
than if they were grown in the sheltered
valleys, where his orange-blossoms and
mignonette are brought to perfection. But
flowers are grown at other places besides
these. In England not much; her speciality
being lavender and peppermint only. But
the lavender farms at Mitcham and Hitchin
produce essential oils which realise eight
times the price of those extracted from French
lavender and French peppermint, and are
worth the difference. At Cannes we have
rose, tuberose, cassie, jasmine, and orange-
neroli; at Nîsmes thyme, rosemary, lavender,
and aspie; at Nice violets and réséda; from
Sicily lemon, bergamot, and orange; while
the Damascus rose-fields, those of Fayoum in
Egypt, and the sweet Cashmerian plains, give
us the famous Attar Gul, or otto of roses,
renowned over the whole world.

Odours are extracted from various parts of
plants or flowers: different in different kinds.
The roots of orris and of vitivert; the stem
or wood of cedar, santal, and rosewood; the
leaves of mint, thyme, and patchouli; the
flowers of roses, violets, and other flowers;
the seeds of Dipterix odorata, or Tonquin
bean, and carraway, the bark of the cinnamon;
many gums and resins— benzoin, olibanum,
&c.; these are a few instances of the
various odoriferous parts of different plants.
Some indeed are more varied in their
odoriferous elements. For instance, the
orange-tree gives three distinct scents, and
most flowers give two, according to their
manner of preparation. From the leaves of
the orange-tree, comes petit-grain; from the
flowers, neroli; from the rind, the essential
oil known as Portugal. Again, the orange
flower or neroli, macerated in pomade, is