826 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April 19, 1875. 
go to Kashmir and Jammu, and are taken by Yarkand 
pilgrims to Mecca, for sale in India or other Asiatic 
countries. They are produced in the north-west of Ro- 
dokh and Nepal, and valued at Le (in Kashmir) from 
seven to fifteen rupees, at Yarkand from twenty-one to 
twenty-six rupees. In former times, musk hags of the 
Dasht-i-Khuttan, or great Tartar Desert, were in high re¬ 
pute, and fetched at the least forty-two rupees ; but all 
supply from that quarter has long ceased.” 
Among animal perfumes musk not only stands pre¬ 
eminent, but in many respects it is the most wonderful 
material nature places at the disposal of the perfumer, 
and it has in all times been the most highly prized among 
the oriental peoples who possessed or could purchase it. 
According to the author and prophet of the Mussulman 
faith, the floor of the seventh heaven, or paradise of the 
faithful, is composed of pure wheaten flour mixed with 
musk and saffron, and the black-eyed houris who will 
welcome the immortal braves to these realms of odori¬ 
ferous bliss are themselves fashioned out of pure musk. 
So enchanting to the senses of the followers of the pro¬ 
phet is the odour of musk, that it is said there exist two 
mosques in the mortar of which an enormous quantity of 
pure musk was mixed up; and such is the penetrating and 
enduring odour of this substance, that probably the per¬ 
fume will continue powerful and persistent as long as the 
finger of time permits the walls to hold together. 
Besides the Moschus moschi/erus, which is practically 
the only source of musk in commerce, many other animals 
and even plants are possessed of a powerful musk odour. 
Among the creatures possessing the scent are the musk 
ox, Ovibos moschaius, of the northern regions; the musk rat 
of India, Sorex myosurus; the European musk rat, Mygale 
moschata; and of all other sources, the alligators and croco¬ 
diles of both hemispheres. This source of musk is well- 
known and utilized in India, as an extract from the cata¬ 
logue of the Madras Exhibition of 1855, speaking of the 
alligator in Travancore, will show. “ Musk,” it says, “ is 
taken from the glands of the jaw, which is very fine if 
well prepared, and separated from the flesh, otherwise it 
will give a very bad smell.” Among the articles exhi¬ 
bited by Egypt in the Paris Exhibition of 1867, there 
occurred the musk of the crocodile as one of the ingre¬ 
dients in Egyptian perfumery. Many insects are also 
powerfully pervaded with an odour of musk. Among 
plants possessing the odour there may be named the seeds 
of Abelmosclius moschata , and the Mimulus moschatus, an 
American importation common in nearly all gardens, and 
which has taken so kindly to many of our water-courses 
that the whole reach of many of our streams is yellow 
with them in July. The most powerful odour of musk is, 
however, contained in the Sumbul or musk-root, Hyalolena 
Siverzovii, an umbelliferous root which comes to us from 
Afghanistan. 
Civet must have been in the days of Shakespeare a 
very fashionable perfume, judging from the frequency of 
his allusions to that substance; and coming down even to 
the time of Cowper, we find the substance singled out for 
mention, though perhaps not what Exhibition juries term 
“honourable mention.” 
“ I cannot talk with civet in the room, 
A fine puss gentleman, that’s all perfume.” 
It does not appear that the fine puss is here put in 
with any special purpose, but it occurs quite appropriately 
when we know that civet is yielded by several species of 
animals of the cat tribe, chiefly by Viverra civetta, or the 
civet, which occurs in the hottest regions of North Africa 
and Abyssinia, and Viverra zibetha, or the zibeth, a native 
of the Philippine Islands. Besides these animals there 
are various allied species of Viverra and Viverrula , which 
occur throughout India, all possessed of a civet pouch. 
The civet apparatus is present in both the male and 
female, and consists of two glands or sacs, placed in the 
neighbourhood of the genital organs, the inner surface of 
the sacs being pierced with a number of apertures com¬ 
municating with the glandular follicles which secrete the 
material. Civets used to be kept in confinement in Dutch 
towns for the purpose of growing the scent; and at the 
present day the animal is reared in some parts of Africa 
in a semi-domesticated condition, and has its civet appa¬ 
ratus cleaned out with a long wooden spoon twice or 
thrice a week. Civet has in its natural condition anything 
but a pleasant odour, but in a highly dilute condition it 
combines most effectively with other odours and imparts 
to them both permanence and pleasing floral fragrance. 
The source of ambergris was for a very long time a 
profound mystery, and the guesses hazarded about its 
origin were about as numerous as they were ridiculous. It 
was found sometimes floating on the surface of the open 
ocean, and most frequently cast up upon shores so far apart 
that it can scarcely be said ambergris belongs to one part 
of the sea more than another. From the coasts of Green* 
land, Iceland, both sides of America, the islands of the 
Indian seas, China and Japan, it has been brought. It was 
supposed at one time to be a balm which grew on sea cliffs 
just as fungi do on trees ; then the dried saliva of whales, 
the excrement of birds, condensed froth of the sea, etc., etc. 
It is really formed, whether as a morbid secretion or not is 
not quite evident, in the alimentary canal of the sperm 
whale, from specimens of which it has frequently been ex* 
tracted. Though it is usually obtained in pieces of from 2 oz. 
to 1 lb. it has been found in enormous masses. In 1691 a 
piece was found on the beach in county Sligo weighing 62 
lbs. which sold in London for above £100. In 1695 the 
East India Company had a mass weighing 160 lbs. and it is 
said that pieces of as much even as 860 lbs. have been found, 
which is rather too much for the whale to contain, or for us 
to swallow comfortably. Ambergris has a mild sweet odour, 
not of much value by itself, but it mixes effectively with 
other perfumes, giving them ethereal odour and some 
amount of permanence. It is in great favour among 
oriental nations, where musk, ambergris, sandalwood and 
rose may be said to be the basis of the system of perfumery. 
The time at our disposal will not permit of any extended 
notice of the most important series of perfumery materials, 
which are derived from the vegetable world, and to only 
one or two of the chief substances can any allusion be 
made. A very important series of substances which enter 
largely into the art of the perfumer, I have already had 
the pleasure of noticing in some detail in a paper on 
oriental spices formerly contributed to this society. Among 
vegetable sources of perfume the rose stands preeminent, 
as it has ever been the favourite flower in all regions of the 
globe, and as such sung by the poets. The first prepara¬ 
tion of rose water is attributed to Avicenna in the tenth 
century, and there is an Indian story of a somewhat 
romantic air, which assigns to Noor Mahal, the wife of the 
famous Emperor Shah Jehan, the first discovery of the 
otto or Attar of roses. Doubtless otto of roses has for some 
centuries been prepared in India, and to the present day 
the finest and by far the most precious otto is prepared 
there. The otto, however, which supplies our markets 
comes from nearer home, a part of it being produced on the 
flower farms of Nice, on the Mediterranean coast of France; 
and the chief supply, not only of England but of all com¬ 
merce being derived from the province of Adrianople in 
Turkey. The rose farms which thus supply the world with 
this prized odour, are chiefly situated on the southern 
slopes of the Balkan range, where the species cultivated 
are chiefly Rosa damascena, R. sempervirens and R. mo chata; 
this last, the musk rose, being that from which Indian otto 
is prepared. The roses, which are planted in rows, like vines 
in a vineyard, and are frequently interspersed with vine 
stocks, produce light red blossoms in the month of May, 
when the rose harvest takes place. The harvest is a some¬ 
what precarious one, depending for its success on many 
influences of the atmosphere and weather, such as sudden 
frosts, the amount of heat, and moisture, etc., besides which 
the plants are subject to the attack of caterpillars. The 
entire flower is plucked and submitted to distillation, with 
its calyx attached. The distilling apparatus consists of a 
