It may be objected, perhaps, that this is a catalogue merely, not a scientific classification. That is quite true. But what is also true is that the others we have quoted are little, if any, better. The fact is that we do not yet possess the knowledge necessary to enable us to arrange odours in classes.
The manufacturers, of course, concern themselves with agreeable and attractive odours only. To the great and growing company of the stinks they pay no attention whatever. For that reason their contribution to our knowledge is necessarily but partial and limited.
In their own proper domain, however, they can point to several great successes. They recognise, for practical purposes, about eighty primitive scents. Many natural (to say nothing of many unnatural) perfumes can now be prepared artificially, and some so prepared are said to be even more powerful than the natural productions. Artificial musk, for example, is one thousand times stronger than natural musk, Parker tells us. Deite, on the other hand, says that the smell of artificial musk is not equal to that of the natural! Indeed, according to this authority, although synthetic perfumes play an important part in the concocting of scents, there are only a few of them which can be used instead of the natural product. What happens is that the artificial and the natural are generally used in combination. Thus the “mignonette” of the shops is prepared by passing geraniol, an artificial odorivector made from citronella oil, over the natural mignonette flowers, the resulting product being an essence smelling strongly of mignonette, and not at all of geraniol.
One or two, as we said, are purely artificial imitations; coumarin, for example, the “new-mown hay” of sentimental memory, which used to be obtained from the tonka bean, is now entirely made up by the synthetic chemist. But for all the more subtle essences we have still to rely upon Nature’s laboratory. The manufacturer steps in and distils the precious essential oil certainly, but it is from flowers that he obtains it. Attar of roses, for instance, contains, in addition to natural geraniol, a number of other ingredients which have so far escaped analysis, a hundred thousand roses supplying only an ounce of it. In like manner a ton of orange blossom yields but thirty to forty ounces of the odorous essential oil.
Many of the costly plant perfumes come from tropical or semi-tropical countries, such as Ceylon, Mexico, and Peru. But tropical perfumes, though strong, lack the delicacy of those found in temperate climates. Cannes, on the Riviera, gives us roses, acacias, jasmine and neroli; from Nimes come thyme, rosemary, and lavender oil; from Nizza, on the Italian Riviera, we get violets; from Sicily, oranges and lemons; from Italy, iris and bergamot. English lavender, until quite recently the most highly esteemed, came from the towns of Hitchin and Mitcham. But I am informed that the growing of lavender in England is no longer pursued with the same success as formerly, and we have to regret the disappearance of this old and truly English industry.
The natural musk, curiously enough, which comes from the musk-deer of Tibet, is not used in making musk perfume. It is, however, widely employed in the perfumer’s art, as it has the curious property of enhancing the strength of other perfumes and of rendering them permanent. Civet, also an animal product, being “the very uncleanly flux” of the civet cat, has similar properties. It is added to other perfumes to strengthen them (“to set them off,” as it were) and to render them more stable.
But the most curious, and also one of the most ancient of perfumes is ambergris, which is a fatty, wax-like substance found floating in the sea or washed ashore. It comes from places as far apart as the west coast of Ireland, China, and South America. The origin of this substance was for long a mystery. But we know now that it consists of the undigested remnants of cephalopods (squids and octopuses) swallowed by the spermaceti whale. Ambergris is used, like musk and civet, to render other scents durable.
But while the victory of the chemist is by no means so complete as it is in the matter of the dyestuffs, research is steadily going on, and the next few years will almost certainly witness an evergrowing conquest over this department of natural chemistry.
In the meantime chemists are applying themselves to the creation of new varieties of perfume, and, if we may judge from those disseminated by certain ladies in public places, with a success that startles and even irritates us. Compared with them, the love-philtres of olden days must have been but feeble things.
“How d’you know you’re in the right ’bus?” asked the ’bus conductor of the blind man who was confidently boarding his vehicle.