The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-10
SCENTS OF SPRING.
How the Ingenious Perfumer Copies
Nature.
London Daily Nail.

London Daily Mail.
The business of the peril mer is an ancient
and honorable one; it was some Rlmmel OF
the old world who manufactured the oil
that ran down Aaron's beard. Horace sang
the praises of frankincense. and to-day
scents still constitute by no means the least
important weapon in the armOry of women
Perfumers may be divided into three main
classes-viz, those engaged in extracting
the natural odoriferous principles from
flowers; those who blend the perfumes thus
obtained make them into pomades, dissolve
them in spirit, and so on; and, lastly, the
chemists, who with TASKS, retorts, condens-
erS, and all the array of chemical forces,
endeavOr to syntheSiSe these delicate com
pounds from the crude elements-oxygen,
hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. We shall
only concern ourselves with the first and
last classes.
Grasse, near Cannes, is the scent town
par excellence. Every one in Grasse lives
blowing. The methods employed have been
in use for centuries. There is, firstly. that
from 200 to $50 gallons the fiowerheads are
thrown, water is added, and the mixture
brought to the boiling point by blowing
into it superheated steam; the violent ac-
ton of the steam breaks up the little scent
cavities, the fragrant oil escaping distills
over with the steam and is caught IN q
condenser. These oils Will not mix with
water, and therefore, either float on its
surface or settle to the bottom. In either
case they are easily drawn or But this
method is suitable only in the case OF the
coarser perfumes; for the more delicate
ones the system of warm n,aceration is
adopted.
and nonrancid grease is prepared during the
winter months, when no other work can pc
done. When May comes round the mowers
of the violet, the rose, the orange tree, ana
cassia are gathered and cast into pots con-
tanning the grease, which is melted ana
maintained at a Temperature OF aRout lzo
takes up the perfume, the flowers are
strained off, another batch added, and this
process is continued for Tive or six days,
by which time the grease has become satur-
ated. and may be packed at once as pomade
or else be extracted with alcohol, which
will remove the essential oil, and give us
the ordinary scent of the ShopS.sa
Even this method, however, is found TO
be wasteful in the case of certain flowers,
notably the jasmine, the tuberose, and the
mignonette If you crush any one OF these
flowers in your hand you find that the de-
lightful smell of a moment before has dis
appeared, and nothing but yegetable-l1ke
smell remains. And the truth is that these
flowers are not storers of perfume; they
manufacture in their tiny cells royal
scent but they fling it at once, and with
regal prodigality, to the four winds of
heaven; so that if you wish 10 capture 1t
you must only make them captive, you
must not kill them. And this is the prin-
ciple of enfieurage.
Imagine a very shallow, lidess, and bot
tomless box fit into this two glass boxes,
lined inside with grease and packed with
the flowers. You then have chamber en-
closing a humid atmosphere In which the
flowers Will live ana manufacture their
scent for days. The scent will be absorbed
as it was in the preceding method, and may
be utilised in exactly the same way.
Den of the most striking attributes of per-
fumes is their penetrative power. Figures
are VIGOROUSLY incapable of conveying
ideas; nevertheless we may state as an ex-
ample that a cubic foot of air containing on
~ one-five-hundredth grain of the essential
principle of the orris root will be perfectly
scented And if the one-SiXty-sX- millionth
part of a grain of musk could be placed upon
q watch glass the smell could be perceived
for some minutes. This accounts for the
clearness of scents. Thus vanillin costs
about 20s. per ounce, heliotropine GA an
ounce, artificial musk G3 los an ounce, and
this last is a mixture containing only 10 per
cent. of musk, so thu the pure substance
is sold at the enormous price of $50 an
ounce
any process whereby a scent. such as musk,
could be artifcially prepared from compar-
atively cheap materials would be extremely
remunerative to its discoverer A few such
Syntheses have been accomplished, and a
description of one or two of them may
prove of interest
consist OF carbon, hydrogen and oxygen,
and the substances are different either when
they contain those elements in different
proportions or else when the groups making
M each molecule are differently arranged.
and it is the aim of the synthetic organic
chemist to find some natural and common
produce of similar constitution to that of the
one sought, and by acting on this to aid to
or substract from its molecule groups of
identical constitution and composition with
the desired molecule.
)me few years ago Tiemann, a celebrated
German chemist, turned his attention to the
odoriferous principle of the orris root with
z view to its artificial production. Now the
first thing one has to realize is the minute
proportion in which the scent exists COM
pared with the bulk of the orris root in
which it is found
Orris root is dear, and Tiemann had to in
woke the pecuniary assistance of a big firm
of manufacturers in order to procure Suffi-
cient material to experiment upon I'm
mease qualities of the orris root were
worked up. and ultimately the essential oil
was isolated in sufficient quantity to aScer-
tain its chemical composition and its con-
stitution. Next. to build il up ii was no
ticed that citral, an aldehyde of common
occurrence in nature, should, on condensa-
ton with acstone, give the desired sub
STAGE The condensation was effected and
the result Was. alas. an CdOrless material.
However, MOI to be beaten. the experiment.
ers treated it with all sorts of chemical
reagents, and ultimately they found that
sulphuric acid caused the parts of the
moiecule to So shift their positions as to
give the long iooked-for vioiet-scented oil
The work lasted for ten years without inter-
mission The labor had been mountainous.
but the mouse that had Eeen brought forth
was big enough to make the fortunes OF all
concerned