288 
president’s address. 
can often be got by distillation, and another, quite distinct, by 
maceration. 
The late Dr. Piesse, in his book, ‘ The Art of Perfumery,’ gives 
much interesting information about floral perfumes, and we learn 
from him to what an extent the skill of the perfumer enables him 
to imitate in his essences, scents which it would be too costly to 
extract from the flowers. Sweet-briar, Honeysuckle, Lily of the 
Valley, Sweet Pea, and Verbena, are never extracted from the 
flowers whose names they bear. May we not then suppose that 
many perfumes are compounded in Nature’s laboratory by a blending, 
in varying proportions, of well-known odours ? 
There are many vegetable odours which, when concentrated, are 
exceedingly unpleasant to our nasal organs, though very agreeable 
when much diluted : thus, a whiff of Eucalyptus is like Cedar-wood, 
and Storax, a fragrant balsam much used in making incense, when 
in bulk exactly resembles the stench from Coal-tar Naphtha, but 
when divided has the fragrance of the Jonquille. 
The only scent which is better made in England than elsewhere 
is Lavender ; the plant has two odours, one ligneous the other 
floral ; on account of the former we lay garments up in Lavender 
to keep away insects, and because of the latter we plant bushes 
near hives to attract insects. 
Among curiosities in scents, we may note cases in which those of 
animals are reproduced in the vegetable world ; as the smell of 
Mice, from which that of Hemlock is not to be distinguished, and 
that of the Musk Rat and Musk Deer which we find in the Musk 
plant, so often grown in cottage windows. The vegetable Musk is 
not powerful enough to be used in perfumery. 
The Ancient Egyptians imported perfumed P>alsams from the 
East in very early times, they also appreciated the scent of fresh 
flowers, as we learn from an illustration from a painting on a tomb 
at Thebes, given by Sir E. Wilkinson, where a lady is represented 
seated in a bath, with an attendant holding a sweet-scented flower 
to her nose, while others are pouring water over her. The use of 
perfumes became fashionable in England in the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, partly through the introduction of scented gloves, the 
