340 



EECREATIVE SCIENCE. 



be used, and proper care taken, success is 

 almost certain, even on the first trial. Much 

 depends on order and cleanliness, and most 

 of the failures are attributable to the neglect 

 of one or other of these photographic vir- 

 tues. There is not the slightest occasion to 

 stain either the dress or the fingers in any of 

 the operations. Those who do so are gene- 

 rally unsuccessful. 



In this limited spade it would be impos- 

 sible to enter into the causes of certain kinds 

 of failure and their remedies. It is best not 

 to anticipate what may, perhaps, never occur, 

 but to state with confidence that any one 



determined to learn the art of photography 

 may, in a very short time, become a success- 

 ful operator. The mode of taking direct 

 positives, and of developing negatives with 

 protosulphate of iron, are also omitted. Those 

 who seek information on these, or any other 

 processes, will find Hardwick's " Photogra- 

 phic Chemistry" a clear and safe guide, but 

 the beginner must not be startled at the size 

 of the volume, nor think it necessary to study 

 the whole of it before he can take photogra- 

 phic pictures. 



Joseph Sidebotham. 

 Manchester. 



THE ODOURS OF ELOWEES. 



The cultivation of a garden, and especially 

 that of flowers, is the one certain mark of 

 civilization, no nation in a state of barbarism 

 ever attaining to it ; nor is it less universal 

 than certain, for all civilized nations seek 

 pleasure from this source, and the love of 

 flowers appears tp be common to all except 

 the most degraded. Appealing to the eye by 

 the beauty of their forms and the splendour 

 of their hues, and to the sense of smelling by 

 their varied odours, they afibrd pleasure at 

 the same time to two of our five senses, and 

 have thus become the theme of the poet, and 

 the admiration of all to whom the works of 

 creation are a source of contemplation and 

 delight. Even the Saviour himself did not 

 withhold his testimony to their loveliness, 

 but declared that Solomon in all his glory 

 was not arrayed like " one of these." 



Our present object, however, is not to call 

 attention to the beauty of flowers as objects 

 of sight, but to their odours — to those subtle 

 emanations which are apparently intangible, 

 and which yet afiect us so strongly, and in 

 general with so much pleasure. It is true 

 there are some individuals in whom the 

 powerful scent of certain flowers, as of the 



hyacinth, causes faintness ; and there are 

 some flowers the scent of which afiects dif- 

 ferent persons in a dissimilar manner. Thus 

 the blossoms of the Portuguese laurel, which 

 to many are agreeable in the open air, are to 

 others so much the reverse as to cause a feel- 

 ing of positive disgust. These difierences 

 must be attributed to some variety in the 

 nervous sensibility of difierent individuals 

 that is not well understood. 



Apart from the immediate purpose of 

 utility, to which each of our several senses is 

 adapted, they at the same time subserve to 

 the pleasure of their possessor, and some of 

 them have for this object alone been con- 

 siderably increased in delicacy and power by 

 careful training. This has been more parti- 

 cularly the case with the eye and the ear, but 

 there seems no reason why the sense of 

 smelling should not be subject to the same 

 process, and thus become able to discrimi- 

 nate odours as perfectly as the ear judges of 

 sounds, and the eye of forms and colours. 

 This may indeed appear almost a necessity in 

 the present day, when the progress of organic 

 chemistry already enables the skUfol operator 

 to produce imitations of several well-known 



