Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/552

5 26 PERFUMERY infinite; one large firm in London is known to manufacture several hundreds. Sources and Commercial Values. For the sources of the various animal perfumes the reader is referred to the articles AMBERGRIS : (vol. i. p. 660), BEAVER- (vol. iii. p. 476), CIVET 3 (vol. v. p. 796), and MusK 4 (vol. xvii. p. 106). The sources of the attars are the different parts of the plants which yield them, the wood (lign aloe, santal, cedar), the bark (cinnamon, cascarilla), the leaves (patch ouli, bay, thyme), the flowers (rose, lavender, orange- blossom), the fruit (nutmeg, citron), or the seeds (caraway, almond). Some plants yield more than one, such as lemon and bergamot. They are mostly obtained by distilling with water that part of the plant in which they are con tained ; but some few, as those from the rind of bergamot (from Citrus bergamia), lemon (citron zeste, from C. Limonum), lime (C. Limetta), by " expression." The outer layer of the cortex is rasped off from the unripe fruits, the raspings placed in a canvas bag, and squeezed in a screw or hydraulic press. The attars so obtained are separated from the admixed water by a tap -funnel, and are then filtered (see OILS, ESSENTIAL, vol. xvii. p. 748). Certain flowers, such as jasmine, tuberose, violet, cassia, either do not yield their attars by distillation at all, or do it so sparingly as not to admit of its collection for commercial purposes ; and sometimes the attar, as in the case of orange (neroli), has an odour quite different from that of the fresh blossoms. In these cases the odours are secured by the processes of inflowering (enfleurage), or by maceration. Both depend upon the remarkable property which fats and oils possess of absorbing odours. The former process has already been described in the article JASMINE (vol. xiii. p. 595). Maceration consists in soaking the flowers in heated fat ; in due time they are strained off and re placed by fresh ones, as in the enfleurage process. The whole of the necessary meltings and heatings of the per fumed greases are effected by means of water -baths, wllereby the temperature is kept from rising too high. For the manufacture of perfumes for the handkerchief the greases now known as pomades, butters, or philocomes are treated with rectified spirit of wine 60 overproof, i.e., containing as much as 95 per cent, of absolute alcohol by volume, which practically completely abstracts the odour. The gum-resins have been employed as perfumes from the earliest ages ; many are referred to in the Old Testament ; see INCENSE (vol. xii. p. 718) and FRANKINCENSE (vol. ix. p. 709). They are largely used in the manufacture of perfumes, both for burning as pastilles, ribbon of Bruges, incenses, &c., and in tinctures, to which they impart their characteristic odours, affording, at the same time, a certain fixity to other perfumes of a more fleeting nature when mixed with them. The chemical perfumes are relatively new. Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of vanilla ( V. planifolia), was first artificially prepared by Tielman and Hermann in Germany, who obtained it from the sap of certain kinds of fir, and established its composition. Their research was afterwards remarkably verified by Dr C. R. Alder Wright, who prepared it from crude opium. It is a pale straw-yellow crystalline substance, smelling exactly like vanilla, and said to be forty times stronger. Its value commercially is about 23s. per oz. Coumarin, the odori ferous principle of Tonquin beans (Dipterix odorata), is also artificially prepared. In appearance it resembles vanillin, and is valued at 9s. per oz. Some similar bodies with fancy names, such as " hemerocalle," "bromelia," " aubepine," are in the market, but have scarcely yet found 1 The present (1884) value of ambergris is about 90s. per oz. 2 The present value of castoreum is about 32s. per It). 3 Its price is about 9s. per oz. 4 Average value about 5 per oz. their way into the perfume manufactory. Xitro-benzol, before mentioned, is employed only for imparting an almond -like odour to inferior soaps. The various com pound ethers called artificial fruit essences, from their resemblance to the odours of certain fruits (jargonelle pear, pine-apple, plum, fcc.), find no place in perfumery, though largely used in confectionery for flavouring. As before stated, the bouquets constituting the second class of perfumes are but alcoholic solutions, i.e., tinctures of some of the foregoing blended together in various pro portions, of which the following well-known recipes are examples : " Rondeletia. " " Bouquet du Roi." Ext. Vanilla 2 pints. Ext. Neroli 2 pints. ,, Musk 1 ,, ! ,, Rose 2 ,, Civet 1 ,, j ,, Musk i ,, Attar Rose 1 oz. j ,, Vanilla ^ ., ,, Mitcham Lavender 1 ,, j Attar Rose 1 dram. The Odophone. The late Dr Septimus Piesse endeavoured to show that a certain scale or gamut existed amongst odours as amongst sounds, taking the sharp smells to correspond with high notes and the heavy smells with low. He illustrated the idea by classifying some fifty odours in this manner, making each to corre spond with a certain note, one-half in each clef, and extending above and below the lines. For example, treble clef note E (4th space) corresponds with Portugal (orange), note D (1st space below clef) with violet, note F (4th space above clef) with ambergris. It is readily noticed in practice that ambergris is much sharper in smell (higher) than violet, while Portugal is intermediate. He asserted that properly to constitute a bouquet the odours to be taken should correspond in the gamut like the notes of a musical chord, one false note among the odours as among the music destroying the harmony. Thus on his odophone, santal, geranium, acacia, orange-flower, camphor, corresponding with C (bass 2d line below), C (bass 2d space), E (treble 1st line), G (treble 2d line), G (treble 3d space), constitute the bouquet of chord C. Other Branches of Perfumery. For the preparation of scented soaps two methods are in use ; both start with a basis either of fine yellow soap (which owes its odour and colour to the presence of resin), or of curd soap (which is hard, white, and odourless, and is prepared without resin). In one process the soap is melted by super heated steam, and while still hot and semi-fluid mixed by means of a T-shaped stirrer of wood with iron cross-bar, technically called a " crutch," with the attars and colouring matter. It is then removed from the melting pan to a rectangular iron mould or box, the sides of which can be removed by unscrewing the tie-rods which hold them in position ; when cold the mass is cut into slabs and bars with a thin brass wire. In the other or cold process the soap is first cut into chips or shavings by a plane or "chipping machine," then the colouring matters are added and thoroughly incorporated by passing the soap between granite rollers driven by steam-power ; the tinted soap emerges in a continuous sheet but little thicker than paper. The attars are then added, and after standing for about twelve hours the soap is again sent through the rolling machine. It is next transferred to a bar-forming machine, which consists of an Archimedean screw with tapering thread revolving in a box ; the soap in sheets is roughly squeezed through a hopper over the widest threads of the screw and is forced, as this revolves, towards the distant end of the box, to an opening of the required size, through which it emerges in a continuous bar almost as hard as wood. Soap thus worked contains less than 10 per cent, of water; that prepared by melting contains 20 and even 30 per cent. The amount of attars added depends upon the nature of the perfume, and amounts usually to about 7 or 8 per cent. The finest soaps are always manufactured by the cold process. Toilet powders are of various sorts. They consist of rice-starch or wheat-starch, with powdered orris-root in varying proportions, and with or without the addition of oxide of zinc, oxide of bismuth, or French chalk. The constituent powders, after the addition of the attars, arc thoroughly incorporated and mixed by sifting through a fine sieve. Violet powder for the nursery should consist entirely of powdered violet root (Iris florentina], from the odour of which the powder is named. It is of a yellowish tint, soft, and pleasant to the touch. The white common so-called "violet powders" consist of starch only scented with attar of bergamot, and are in every sense inferior. Tooth powders consist for the most part of mixtures of powdered orris-root with precipitated chalk, and some other con stituent destined to particularize it as to properties or flavour, such as charcoal, finely-pulverized pumice, quassia, sugar, camphor, &c. The perfume of the contained orris-root is modified, if required, by the addition of a little of some attar. Toothpastes are not much in vogue ; they are formed of the same constituents as the powders, and are worked into a paste by the addition of a little honey or glucose-