194 NATURE AND LIFE. 



factured, wholly from elements, in laboratories, are abso- 

 lutely identical with the products extracted from plants. 

 The speculations of theory on the arrangements of atoms, 

 sometimes condemned as useless, do not merely aid in giv- 

 ing us a clearer comprehension of natural laws, which is 

 something of itself, but they do more, as real instances 

 prove : they often give us the key to brilliant and valuable 

 inventions. Piria, an- Italian chemist, who was employed 

 in Paris in 1838, was the first who imitated by art a 

 natural aromatic principle. By means of reactions sug- 

 gested by theory, he prepared a salicilic aldehyde, which 

 turned out to be the essence of meadow-sweet, so delicate 

 and subtile in its odor. A few years later, in 1843, Ca- 

 hours discovered methylsalicilic ether, and showed that it 

 is identical with the essence of wintergreen. A year after, 

 Wertheim composed essence of mustard, while believing 

 himself to be making only allylsulphocyanic ether. These 

 discoveries produced a sensation. Nowadays the chemist 

 possesses the means of creating many other natural es- 

 sences. Common camphor, essence of bitter-almonds, that of 

 cummin and of cinnamon, which are aldehydes, as we have 

 seen, may be prepared without camphor-leaves or almonds, 

 without cummin or cinnamon. Besides these ethers and al- 

 dehydes whose identity with essences of vegetable origin 

 has been proved, there exist, among the new bodies known 

 to organic chemistry, a certain number of products formed 

 by the union of common alcohol or amylic alcohol with 

 different acids, that is to say, of ethers, which have aromatic 

 odors more or less resembling those of some fruits, but as 

 to which it cannot yet be affirmed that the odors are due to 

 the same principles in both cases. However this may be, 

 perfumers and confectioners, more industrious and wide- 

 awake than chemists, immediately made good use of 

 these properties. Artificial aromatic oils made their first 

 appearance at the World's Fair of London in 1851. There 



