NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL PERFUMES. 87 



are generally scandalously adulterated, European manufacturers have 

 been impelled to bring home such of the crude material as will bear 

 transportation. So sandalwood, cloves, patchouli leaves, and veti- 

 vert-grass roots brought dried and with their scents unimpaired are 

 distilled in France and Germany rather than in the countries of 

 their origin. 



The most important center of this manufacture is the little city 

 of Grasse, near Mce and Cannes, which, besides being a large center 

 of production for the distillation of plants and woods, is the chief 

 place where these special processes which have been transmitted 

 through ages and are the only ones for the extraction of the per- 

 fumes of flowers are in use. The only chemical agents employed 

 in these processes are vapor and fat. 



The manufactories of artificial perfumes, on the other hand, are 

 real laboratories of chemical products where the habitual agents 

 of chemical industry are employed, requiring the intervention of 

 chemists and engineers, and are established by preference at the 

 great industrial centers. Hence good reasons exist for these two 

 branches having been kept apart, although it is not certain that this 

 separation will continue permanent. 



The simplest process of extraction is by distillation. The flow- 

 ers or leaves are put into the retorts with water and heated to the 

 proper degree. The perfume passes over to the cooling apparatus 

 with the vapor of the water and is condensed with it, after which 

 it is separated from the water by taking advantage of the difference 

 of density. The heat is applied by means of vapor under pressure. 

 Formerly fire was applied directly, but the amount of production 

 was insignificant compared with what it is now; this method is, 

 however, still in use in small portable apparatus. Some distilla- 

 tions are literally performed on the spot, as those of certain aromatic 

 plants which are not grown very near Grasse, the finer lavenders 

 especially being found wild at considerable heights on the moun- 

 tains. The communal lands up there are allotted every year, and 

 extractors who make this a specialty establish themselves in their 

 plots with their direct fire apparatus, expecting to dispose of their 

 production to the large houses. 



When the quantity produced is regarded, distillation is the most 

 important branch of the perfumery industry. It is simple, inex- 

 pensive, requires but little manual labor, and is applicable to large 

 quantities of material. But there are objections to it, and some 

 of them are of so much force as to have led to the substitution for 

 it of seemingly more primitive, and at all events more expensive, 

 methods of extraction. The first objection is the liability of vapor, 

 coming in contact with some of their more unstable constituents, 



