44 



PERFUMES OF THE ROSE. 



also SO strong and penetrating, that a single drop, or as much as 

 will attach itself to the point of a needle, is sufficient to perfume 

 an apartment for several days ; and if the small flask in which 

 it is sold, although tightly corked and sealed, is placed in a 

 drawer, it will perfume all the contents. 



When in a congealed or chrystalized state, the attar will 

 liquify at a slight heat, and if the flask is merely held in the 

 hand, a few minutes will suffice to render it liquid. In the 

 East, much use is made of the attar, particularly in the harems. 

 In Europe and America, it is employed in the manufacture of 

 cordials and in the preparation of various kinds of perfumery. 



Rose-water, or the liquid obtained from rose-petals by distilla- 

 tion, is very common, and is found in almost every country 

 where the arts and luxuries of life have at all advanced. 



Pliny tells us, that rose-water was a favorite perfume of the 

 Roman ladies ; and the most luxurious used it even in their 

 baths. ^ This, however, must have been some preparation differ- 

 ent from that now known as rose-water, and was probably a 

 mere tincture of roses. 



The ancients could have known nothing of rose-water, for 

 they were entirely ignorant of the art of distillation, which only 

 came into practice after the invention of the alembic by the 

 Arabs. Some attribute this discovery to Rhazes, an Arabian 

 physician who lived in the early part of the tenth century ; and 

 others attribute it to Avicenna, who lived at Chyraz, in the latter 

 part of the same century. It is also attributed to Geber, a cele- 

 brated Arabian alchemist, who lived in Mesopotamia in the 

 eighth century. Subsequent, therefore, to this discovery of the 

 alembic, we find, according to Gmelin, in his history of the pre- 

 paration of distilled waters, that the first notice of rose-water is 

 by Aben-Zohar, a Jewish physician, of Seville, in Spain, who 

 recommends it for diseases of the eye. From the Arabs this in- 

 vention passed among the Greeks and Romans, as we are in- 

 formed by Actuarius, a writer of the eleventh or twelfth century. 



In France, the first distillation of rose-water appears to have 



