43 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



affords a white, hard butter, richer than but- 

 ter from the cow, which has the further ad- 

 vantage of remaining fresh for a whole year 

 without being salted. Only limited quanti- 

 ties of this product have as yet come into 

 the market. The native Africans use all 

 these fruits, under one form or another, for 

 their own alimentation. 



Flowers and Perfumes. The rose is ex- 

 tensively cultivated in the Balkan Peninsula, 

 chiefly for the sake of the perfume it af- 

 fords. The Provence or cabbage rose, it is 

 said, will yield in the second year from one 

 hundred to two hundred bushels of flowers 

 per acre, weighing six pounds to the bushel. 

 The rose harvest at Adrianople sometimes 

 yields about ninety-four thousand ounces of 

 attar of roses ; the average of the Bulgarian 

 harvests in the past ten seasons has been 

 fifty-seven thousand ounces. The price of 

 this perfume has declined fifty per cent since 

 18S3. The Moors in Algeria extract an at- 

 tar of moderate value from the indigenous 

 double white musk rose. Twenty-eight tons 

 of rose-leaves were imported into Aden in 

 1886, of which half were shipped to India. 

 The " ixora extract " is made from the soka- 

 flower {Parvclta angustijlora) ; frangipanni, 

 from the flowers of species of Plumcria, na- 

 tive to the West Indies and some parts of 

 South America ; the essence and pomade of 

 cassie, of the French perfumers, from the 

 flowers of Acacia famesicina. About one 

 hundred tons of these flowers are used in 

 Cannes yearly, individual makers working 

 up one hundred thousand pounds. The fra- 

 grant white flowers of Bligltia sapida and 

 of the Bukul {Mimusops Elengi) are used for 

 making distilled waters ; and the flowers of 

 spikenard {Andropoc/on nardus) are employed 

 in Algeria for perfuming hair-oils and cos- 

 metics. Moorish women form garlands to 

 ornament. the interior of their dwellings from 

 the flowers of the jasmine, and obtain a 

 perfume by steeping them with oil in bottles, 

 which are exposed to the sun. The same 

 process is applied to the flowers of the tu- 

 berose and the cassia. Hungary water is 

 distilled with spirit from the tops of rose- 

 mary-flowers. Twenty tons of violets are 

 used annually in Nice and Cannes, and one 

 hundred and twenty tons of orange-blossoms 

 in Nice. Orange-flower water is one of the 



most agreeable vehicles for nauseous medi- 

 cines that we have. Rose-buds are made 

 into preserves in Arabia; the blossoms of 

 the shaddock are used for flavoring sweet- 

 meats, and the fleshy calyces or flower-bracts 

 of the Indian sorrel, a Hibiscus, having a 

 pleasant acid taste, are made into tarts, 

 jellies, and refreshing drinks in India. The 

 petals of flowers arc much used in Roumania 

 for flavoring preserves, of which not less 

 than one hundred and fifty varieties are 

 made. 



NOTES. 



Attention has been called, in letters writ- 

 ten by Mr. James R. Skilton to the Mayor 

 of Brooklyn, to the dangers that are hidden 

 in the pipes through which water-gas is con- 

 veyed into houses and in the meters. The 

 pipes and the meters are often it would 

 hardly be too much to say, usually leaky, 

 and as the escaping gas, largely carbonic 

 oxide, while extremely poisonous, is imper- 

 ceptible to the senses, great harm may be 

 and often is wrought before the family are 

 aware that anything is wrong. It is hard, 

 even when the nuisance is known to exist, 

 to force timely attention from the compa- 

 nies furnishing the gas, and, when they do 

 send men to make repairs, the work is, as 

 a rule, done in the most negligent manner. 

 Mr. Skilton has no doubt that " hundreds of 

 people are sacrificed every year to the Mo- 

 loch of the gas-meter." 



In the " Monthly " for July there is a 

 note in which Asamayama is spoken of as 

 the highest active volcano in Japan. This 

 is popularly correct, but is not scientifically 

 exact. Asamayama is 8,284 feet high (Rein). 

 The last fatal eruption took place in 1783, 

 and the last emission of ashes occurred in 

 1870, while the evidences of volcanic erup- 

 tion are much more conspicuous than they 

 are around Fujiyama, the height of which 

 is 12,287 feet (ibid.), and which has been 

 quiet i. e., not violently active since 1707. 

 But when one sees the " hot " place on the 

 side of Fuji, it becomes very apparent that 

 the activity of Asama is very little greater 

 than that of her peerless sister. The heat 

 at one place on Fuji is so great as to be per- 

 ceptible to the hand. Snow will not lie ; and 

 it is said that there is an escape of steam. 



Borings of rock-salt at Ellsworth and 

 Kingman, Kansas, were described by Mr. 

 Robert Hay at the meeting of the American 

 Association. The veins were discovered in 

 April and August, 1888. One hundred and 

 fifty-five barrels of salt were manufactured 

 in Kansas in 1888, and it is estimated that 

 the output of 1889 will not be less than 

 three times as large. 



