the premises and declared with evident 
honesty that he could detect nothing 
disagreeable in the air nor any sort of 
a scent that did not properly belong to 
a rendering establishment. Those who 
w,ork where there are strong and dis- 
agreeable odors soon become so accus- 
tomed to peculiar smells that they do 
not notice them at all, although they 
are keen to detect any unusual odor, 
as when the liquor in a tanner's vat has 
not in it the proper admixture of ma- 
terials. 
All the lower animals seem to be 
positive as to the direction of the 
source of any scent, but man is power- 
less in the matter. He merely knows 
an odor is present, but is unable to tell 
without moving about whether it comes 
from one side of him or another. A 
blindfolded boy cannot tell which side 
of his nose is nearest to a suspended 
orange. 
To affect this sense a substance must 
be dissolved or scattered through the 
atmosphere to be breathed. Whether 
such substances are divided and used 
up in giving out odors is still a ques- 
tion. Some of them, as the essential 
oils, waste away when exposed to the 
air, but a grain of musk remains a grain 
of musk with undiminished power after 
years of exposure. The experiment is 
such a delicate one in connection with 
the musk that it has never been settled 
to the satisfaction of science. 
Substances which scatter themselves 
readily through the air are usually 
odorous, while those which do not are 
generally without smell. But many of 
these when transformed into vapors, as 
by the application of heat, become 
strongly odorous. Bodies existing 
naturally in the gaseous state are usu- 
ally the most penetrating and effective 
as odors. Sulphuretted and carburetted 
hydrogen are examples of these. 
College boys sometimes procure 
from the chemical laboratories of their 
institutions materials which are used 
with telling effect on the social func- 
tions of higher or lower classes; in one 
instance a banquet was cleared of guests 
by the conscienceless introduction of 
chemicals just before the festivities 
were to have begun. Efforts to intro- 
duce powerful gases as weapons in war 
I have failed because the effect is not 
confined to the enemy. 
Gases which are offensive are not 
always positively harmful, but as a rule 
those which offend the nose are to be 
avoided. Some deadly gases do not 
affect the sense of smell at all, as in the 
case of earth damp which stupefies and 
kills men in mines and wells without 
warning. But the nose is a great de- 
tector of bad air, especially that of a 
. noxious character, and sewer gas as 
j well as other poisonous airs which 
! bring on the worst types of fever are 
j offensive to one who is not living all 
the time within their range. 
But a small part of the mucous 
membrane of the nose is the seat of this 
important sense. The olfactory cells 
are not as easily examined and traced 
in their connections as are the end or- 
gans of the sense of taste. Yet the 
anatomist finds in the structure of the 
noses of the flesh-eating animals suffi- 
cient indications of their superiority 
over man in the exercise of the sense 
of smell. The peculiar development 
of the membrane and the complicated 
structure of the nasal cavities in the re- 
gion occupied by the cells which are 
supposed to connect with the extreme 
divisions of the olfactory nerve are all 
that one would expect from the differ- 
ences in endowment. 
Aside from peculiar powers of smell 
there are other endowments of noses 
which are remarkable. The common 
hog has a snout that is easily moved 
and has great strength. He can take 
down a rail fence with it quite as skill- 
fully as a boy would do it. He can 
turn a furrow in the soil in search of 
eatable roots, and when the ground is 
frozen to a considerable degree of hard- 
ness he pursues his occupation with un- 
abated zeal and no evident embarrass- 
ment. 
The fresh-water sturgeon has a large 
gristle in his nose which boys some- 
times convert into a substitute for a 
rubber ball. His nose is a useful in- 
strument in securing food from the 
mud in the river bottom. The rhinoc- 
eros has a fierce horny protuberance 
rising from his nose which is valuable 
to him in war. Indeed some are 
equipped with two horns, one behind 
67 
