158 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. IX. 



observe that the Moringem are tropical Asiatic, Arabian and Mada- 

 gascar trees. The best-known species is M. altera, of which the seed 

 called Ben-nut yields a fixed oil of much repute in the East, because 

 it does not become rancid and is used by perfumers and mechanists in 

 cold countries from its not freezing. 



The concluding remarks of Dr. Hamilton's paper before the Phar- 

 maceutical Society I have been hitherto quoting are so graphic, 

 and seem to me to be so useful to lovers and manufacturers of scents, 

 that I am tempted to quote them in extenso, in the hope that they 

 may encourage some of our indigenous scent-manufacturers to cultivate 

 the Moringa pterygosperma plant for its seed, with the view of 

 obtaining from the seed that bland oil which has been in the past a 

 very useful scent-storer, and may in future add largely to the manufac- 

 ture of numerous essential oils and essences from indigenous scented 

 flowers and leaves. To quote, then, the remarks of Dr. Hamilton, he 

 says: — " The oil which is so profusely obtained from the seeds is 

 peculiarly valuable for the formation of ointments, from its capability 

 of being kept for almost any length of time without entering into 

 combination with oxygen. 



" This property, together with the total absence of colour, smell, and 

 taste, peculiarly adapts it to the purposes of the perfumer, who is able to 

 make it the medium of arresting the flight of those highly volatile parti- 

 cles of essential oil which constitute the aroma of many of the most 

 odoriferous flowers, and cannot be obtained, by any other means, in a con- 

 centrated and permanent form. To effect this, the petals of the flowers, 

 whose odour it is desired to obtain, are thinly spread over flakes of cotton- 

 wool saturated with this oil and the whole inclosed in air-tight tin cases 

 where they are replaced by fresh ones, and the process thus continued 

 till the oil has absorbed so much as was desired of the aroma ; it is then 

 separated from the wool by pressure, and preserved under the name of 

 essence in well-stoppered bottles. By digesting the oil thus impregnated 

 in alcohol, which does not take up the fixed oil, a solution of the aroma 

 is effected in the spirit, and many odoriferous tinctures or waters, as 

 they are somewhat inaccurately termed, prepared which could not 

 otherwise be obtained. By this process most delicious perfumes might 

 be obtained from the flowers of the Acacia tortuosa, Pancratium carri- 

 beum, Plumeria alba^ Plumeria rubra, and innumerable other flowers of 



