Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/553

P E R -P E B 527 syrup, which substances are usually believed ultimately to have an injurious effect on the teeth. Perfume sachets consist either of a powder composed of a mixture of vanilla, musk, Tonquin beans, &c., one or other predominating as required, contained in an ornamental silk sac ; or of some of the foregoing substances spread upon card or chamois leather or flannel after being made into a paste with mucilage and a little glycerin. When dry the card so prepared is daintily covered with various party-coloured silks for sale. Where the ingredients employed in their manufacture are of good quality these cards, known as " peau d Espagne " sachets, retain their odour unimpaired for years. Adulterations. There is, as might be expected, considerable scope for the adulteration of the " matieres premieres " employed in perfumery, and it is to be stated with regret that many unscrupulous dealers avail themselves of the facilities offered for this dishonourable practice. Thus, in the ease of musk, the " pods " are frequently found to be partially emptied of the grain, which has been replaced by hide or skin, while the weight has been increased by the introduction of lead, &c. In other instances the fraud consists in the admixture of refuse grain, from which the odour has been exhausted with spirit, with dried blood, and similar substances, whilst pungency is secured by the addition of carbonate of ammonia. Attar of rose is diluted down with attar of Palma rosa, a variety of geranium of only a quarter or a fifth of the value. The main adulterant of all the attars, however, is castor oil. This is a bland neutral body, practically odourless, and completely soluble in alcohol ; it therefore presents all the requisites for the purpose. Its detection is difficult even by chemical analysis, which is obviously inapplicable in most instances ; the safeguard of the purchaser is the knowledge resulting from experience. Statistics. In Europe, flower-farming for perfumery purposes is almost exclusively confined to that triangular portion of the valley of the Yar (France) which has Grasse for its apex and the Mediter ranean shore between Nice and Cannes for its base, with an area of about 115,000 English acres. It is here that the jasmine, tuberose, cassia, rose, and violet grow to such perfection, and that the processes of enfleurage and maceration are commercially worked. Subjoined is an estimate 1 of the weight of flowers annually employed. r ~ i TlJ " s - Harvest Time. 1 18(50 20th April to 31st May. . i 930 May. Violets 147 15th January to loth April. | 147 20th July to 10th October. | 74 August, September, and October. Cassia .... I 30 15 October, November, and December. February and March. Great praise is due to the pioneers of flower-farming in the British colonies of South Africa and Australia, and especially to Colonel Talbot in Jamaica, whose efforts in this direction bid fair to meet with complete commercial success. The attars from peppermint (Mentha Piper ita), thyme (T. vul- garis), and lavender (Lavandula vera), the finest in the world, are distilled from plants grown in the neighbourhood of Mitcham in Surrey. It is estimated that between 8000 and 10,000 ounces of musk are annually imported from all sources, while the quantity of alcohol employed in the manufacture of perfumes is calculated to exceed 60,000 gallons. See Piesse s Art of Perfumery, 4th ed., 18SO. (C. H. P.) PERGAMUM, an important city of Teutlirania, a dis trict in Mysia ; it is usually named Hepya/xov by Greek writers, but Ptolemy has the form Hepyapos. The name, which is related to the German bury, is appropriate to the situation on a lofty isolated hill in the broad and fertile valley of the Caicus, about 120 stadia, less than 15 miles, from its mouth. According to the belief of its inhabitants, the town was founded by Arcadian colonists, led by Tele- phus, son of Heracles. Auge, the mother of Telephus, was priestess of Athena Alea at Tegea, and daughter of Aleus fleeing from Tegea, she became the wife of Teuthras, the eponymous king of Teutlirania, and her son Telephus succeeded him. Athena Polias was the patron-goddess of Pergainum, and the legend combines the ethnological record of the connexion claimed between Arcadia and Pergainum with the usual belief that the hero of the city was son of its guardian deity, or at least of the priestess who represented her. Nothing more is recorded of the city till the time of Xenophon, when it was a small fortified town on the summit of the hill. Its importance began under 1 Kindly furnished by M. Bruno Court, head of the well-known house of Notre Dame des Fleurs of Grasse. Lysimachus, who deposited his treasures, 9000 talents, in this strong fortress under the charge of a eunuch Phil etaerus of Tium. In 283 B.C. Philetaerus rebelled, Lysi machus died without being able to put down the revolt, and Pergamum became the capital of a little principality. Partly by clever diplomacy, partly through the troubles caused by the Gaulish invasion and by the dissensions among the rival kings, Philetaerus contrived to keep on good terms with his neighbours on all sides (283-263 B.C.). His nephew Eumenes (263-241) succeeded him, increased his power, and even defeated Antiochus of Syria in a pitched battle near Sardis. His successor Attains I. (241- 197) won a great battle over the Gauls, and assumed the title of king. The other Greek kings who aimed at power in Asia Minor were his natural enemies. On the other hand, the influence of the Romans was beginning to make itself felt in the East. Attains perceived the advantage of their alliance against his Greek rivals, connected himself with them from the first, and shared in their continuous success. Under the reign of Attalus Pergamum became the capital of a considerable territory and a centre of art and regal magnificence. Sculptors were attracted by the wealth of the state and the king s desire to celebrate his victories by monuments of art, and thus arose the so-called "Pergamenian school" in sculpture. The Pergamenian kings appear to have been far more truly Hellenic, and to have admitted far less of the " barbarian " Oriental char acter to their court, than the other Hellenistic sovereigns, whose habits and surroundings were those of Eastern sultans with a thin surface-gloss of Greek manners. We hear more of the munificence of Attalus towards Athens, then the educational centre of Greece, than to his own capital. The splendour of Pergamum was at its height under Eumenes II. (197-159). He continued true to the Romans during their wars with Antiochus and Perseus, and his kingdom spread over the greater part of western Asia Minor, including Mysia, Lydia, great part of Phrygia and Caria. To celebrate the great achievement of his race, the defeat of the barbarian Gauls, he built in the agora a vast altar to Zeus Soter, adorned with sculptures and especially with a gigantic frieze, in which the symbolic theme of the defeat of the barbarian giants by the gods was treated on such a scale, and with such wealth of de tail and perfection of technical skill, as made the monu ment one of the marvels of the ancient world. He devoted great care to the improvement and embellishment of the city. It is not certain when the old Doric temple of Athena Polias and Nicephorus on the Acropolis was re placed by a more magnificent marble temple, but Eumenes planted a grove in the Nicephorion, the sacred precinct of the goddess, and established libraries and other great works in the city. He left an infant son, Attalus (III.), and a brother, Attalus II. (Philadelphia), who ruled 159-138, and was succeeded by his nephew, Attalus III. (Philometor). The latter died in 133, and bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans, who erected it into a province under the name of Asia. Pergamum continued to rank, with Ephesus and Smyrna, as one of the three great cities of the province, and the devotion of its former kings to the Roman cause was continued by its citizens, who erected on the acropolis a magnificent temple to Augustus. It was the seat of a convents, including the cities of the Caicus valley and some of those in the northern part of the Hermus valley. Under the Roman empire Pergamum was one of the chief seats of the worship of Asclepius ; invalids came from dis tant parts of the country to ask advice from the god and his priests. The temple and the curative establishment of the god were situated outside the city. Pergamum was one of the early seats of Christianity, and one of the seven churches enumerated in the Revelation was situated