ODOUR OF WOOD.

dispersed that every herb, tree, and flower, pours forth a stream of the most varied and delicious odours. Why there should be so great a difference between a thicket of cistuses, when visited in the morn of one day, and in the morning of the next, like many other things in the vegetable world, is utterly unknown.

Some odours are called intermittent. Many plants are almost entirely without scent during the day, but are deliciously fragrant at night. One exhibits a very great peculiarity: if exposed to the direct rays of the sun, it exhales an aromatic odour, but if anything comes between it and the sun, the fragrance is gone, only to return when the solar beams are restored.

Odours are more durable when the volatile matter is so shut up in cells and concentrated, as to be slowly dispersed. Many instances of this kind occur in wood and bark. Thus, resinous woods, such as cedar and cypress, are fragrant for a long time. Parts where scent resides in essential oil, long preserve their odour, where the oil is but slightly volatile, or the wood is thick and hard. In this way, the rose-wood of Teneriffe continues to be fragrant, but it requires to be rubbed strongly, that heat may volatilise the matter which is lodged in its very compact tissue. The friction of a turner's lathe, in like manner, renders many woods

SANDAL-WOOD.

odorous, which are otherwise scentless. Beech is said, in this way, to smell like roses. In other cases, the scent escapes rapidly, as in cinnamon and cassia.

Sandal-wood is highly esteemed in some parts of the earth. It is, for instance, the most precious commodity for commerce produced in the Sandwich Islands. The king, at one time, monopolized the property of these trees, which grow on the highest mountains, and required his subjects to cut down and bring the supplies, as they were wanted, to the coast, at their own toil and expense. At a later period, he permitted some of his more favoured chiefs to share with him in this traffic.

The wood, which is used by the Chinese for its agreeable fragrance, in the manufacture of fans and other toys, as well as burned by them before their various idols, is exported for these purposes to Canton and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. On one occasion, some travellers observed nearly two thousand persons, laden with faggots of sandal-wood, coming down from the mountains, to deposit their burdens in the royal storehouses.

All vegetable odours are produced by the evaporation of particles of these volatile oils. They vary greatly as to consistence. Some of them are as thick as butter, whilst others are as fluid as water. To be

SANDAL-WOOD.

prepared for perfumes, they are first purified, and then either mixed with a large proportion of water, or distilled with spirits of wine. Peppermint-water is often produced by the former method, and lavender-water by the latter.

Vegetable odours are usually agreeable to the senses; but there are some curious exceptions. There are flowers, for instance, of a deep livid colour, which have a smell so much like that of putrid meat, that flies actually deposit their eggs in them by mistake. Some scents act powerfully on the nerves, and even the most prized, when concentrated, prove offensive. A perfumer's shop, though the repository of the sweetest essences, is by no means an agreeable place. persons can bear the fragrance of the lilac, especially in a room; and the jonquil and tuberose have proved insupportable when the nerves were delicate. De Candolle states, that he has seen many ladies faint from carrying too large a number of violets on their persons, or placing them too near their beds.

Few

Odours, it should be remarked, may have an animal as well as a vegetable origin, of which two examples must now suffice. The civet, which is a native of the hottest parts of Africa, is celebrated for its musky perfume, which is the product of a peculiar apparatus.

THE CIVET.

This substance was, formerly, in great repute; it was an article of commerce; and, to a considerable extent, was imported into Europe by way of Alexandria and Venice. At a town in Abyssinia, great numbers of these animals were kept for the purpose of supplying the markets; and a similar practice has prevailed in Holland. In certain parts of the East, they are also much valued. Some travellers observed, in the palace of the ranee, or sovereign princess at Trivanderam, several of them, which were caught in the jungles among the mountains. They were carefully kept in cages, having a bamboo placed perpendicularly in them. Against these they rubbed the parts from which the perfume oozes, and thus their royal mistress was supplied with what she required for her own use, in native purity.

Another creature, remarkable in the same way, is the musk deer, which is confined to the continent of Asia. It is as large as a roebuck, and is a wild, solitary, timid animal, dwelling among broken crags and mountain precipices, and ever watchful against surprise. It is eagerly pursued for the sake of its perfume, which is peculiar to the male alone. As soon as the hunter has killed one of these animals, he removes the musk pouch, which is situated on the abdomen, and ties it

THE MUSK DEER.

up to be ready for sale. It usually contains about two drachms. The highest scented musk is imported from Thibet and Tonquin. As we pass northward, it becomes inferior in quality, and almost inodorous.

In the diffusion of odours, there is a remarkable proof of the divisibility of matter. Let, for example, the stopper be taken out of a bottle of attar of roses, and the scent spreads itself through the room. In this case, very minute particles escape. Some idea of their extreme smallness may be formed from the immense