valued as agreeable perfumes. Among the latter, musk, civet, and ambergris are the most important.

Fig. 86.

10. Musk is a substance which is found secreted in a small bag, attached to the under part of the body of a ruminating animal of the size of a roebuck (fig. 86), which inhabits the mountains of China, Thibet, Tonquin, Tartary, and Siberia. It is obtained only from the male animal. When fresh, it is in the state of a soft, salve-like, reddish

brown mass. It possesses a peculiar, penetrating, long-continuing odour, and a bitter, astringent, aromatic, slightly saline taste. By keeping, it dries, becomes blackish-brown, and assumes the form of little rounded grains, which give a brown streak upon paper, and are easily rubbed to powder. It is one of the most powerful, most penetrating, and most lasting of odoriferous substances. It attaches itself, and gives a durable scent to every thing in its neighbourhood. Different qualities of musk are met with in the market, and from its high price it is very liable to adulteration. When pure, it dissolves in water to the extent of three-fourths of the whole.

The chemical nature of musk is not thoroughly understood. It contains several less valuable ingredients, the general properties and origin of which are known; but the chemical characters and composition of that ingredient which emits the valuable odour have not yet been rigorously investigated. As is the case with the special bouquet of wine, it appears to consist of a volatile acid united to a

volatile alkali, which are separated from each other by distillation with lime-(WINCKLER). Imperfect as our knowledge of musk at present is, however, observations already made render it probable that, before many years have elapsed, we shall be able to produce it by art.

So persistent and apparently indestructible is the odorous principle of musk, that when taken internally, as it frequently is in cases of spasms, it passes through the pores of the skin, and impregnates the perspiration with a strong smell of musk. When kept in capsules of wax, however, or in contact with lime, with milk of sulphur, with sulphurate of gold, or with syrup of almonds, musk loses it smell. But in all these cases the smell is restored by moistening it with liquid ammonia (hartshorn).

The flesh of the crocodile is said to smell of musk, and the same odour is sometimes emitted by plants. Thus our common beet has a musky smell, and the musk-plant of our gardens possesses it more distinctly. But the Delphinium glaciale, a plant which grows on the Himalayas at the height. of 17,000 feet, has so strong and disagreeable a smell of musk, that the natives believe the musk deer, which is found on the mountain slopes, to derive its smell from eating this plant. Another Delphinium, the D. brunonianum, which grows on the western slopes of the Himalayas, has a similar smell of musk, though less disagreeable (HOOKER). The nature of the musky-smelling substances contained in these plants is not yet known.

About six thousand ounces of musk are imported into this country every year, besides that which comes from China and Russia-(POOLE). Each natural pod or sac weighs only six drachms, less than half of which consists of musk. It is somewhat remarkable that while this scent is so much esteemed in England and other countries, it is extensively disliked in Italy, and makes many persons ill.

20. CIVET.-The substance known in commerce by the

name of civet, is secreted by two animals of the genus Vi

what acrid taste. Its smell resembles that of musk. When undiluted, this smell is so powerful as to be offensive to many; but when mixed with a large quantity of butter, or other diluting substance, it becomes agreeably aromatic, fragrant, and delicate.* It is used only as a perfume, and chiefly to mingle with, and improve the odour of, less costly scents. Lavender and other scented waters are made more agreeable by a skilful addition of civet, in minute proportions.

Over Northern Africa, between the Red Sea and Abyssinia, the civet cat, called by the Arabs kedis, is highly valued. Numbers of them are kept in wicker cages for the pursose of collecting the civet they secrete. It is used by the women for the purpose of powdering the upper parts of their body, their necks, &c. Its strong odour overpowers the disagreeable effluvium which often escapes from their dusky skins in that arid climate. †

It throws some light upon the diversity of taste which prevails in regard to scents, that the same substance may be agreeabie in a diluted, which is offensive in a concentrated state. The volatile oils of neroli, thyme, and patchouli are in themselves unpleasant, but when diluted with a thousand times their bulk of oil or spirit, their fragrance is delightful. So the odoriferous ethers require to be diluted with six times their weight of alcohol.

+ WERNE'S African Wanderings (Travellers' Library), pp. 187, 260.

AMBERGRIS AND ITS USES.

499

Castoreum, yielded by the beaver, is a natural secretion, similar in its origin and its properties to musk and civet. Like these substances, it has, when fresh, a powerful penetrating odour, and a bitter acrid taste. The odour, however, is fetid and disagreeable: it is only used in medicine, therefore, and never as a perfume.

Hyraceum is a similar substance obtained from the mountain badger (Hyrax capensis). It resembles castoreum in smell, and is sometimes used medicinally in its stead.

3°. AMBERGRIS is an odoriferous substance which is found floating on the sea near the Molucca Islands, in other parts of the Indian Ocean, and off the coast of South America. It is believed to be rejected by the spermaceti whale (Physeter macrocephalus), in which it has sometimes been found.

Physeter macrocephalus-Spermaceti Whale.

When fresh, ambergris is solid, greyish, streaked or marbled, and somewhat soft. It has a strong agreeable odour, resembling that of musk, and a fatty taste. It con

sists, to the amount of six-sevenths of the whole (eightyfive per cent), of a fragrant substance, soluble in alcohol, to which the name of ambreine has been given, To this principal ingredient its use as a perfume is owing. Ambergris is rarely employed alone. The essence of ambergris of the perfumer is an alcoholic tincture of the substance, to which the oils of roses, cloves, &c., are added, according to fancy. What is called tincture of civet is formed by macerating half an ounce of civet with a quarter of an ounce of ambergris in a quart of rectified spirit. Either of these tinctures, added in minute quantity to lavender water, to tooth-powder, hair-powder, toilet soaps, &c., communicates to them the peculiar odour of ambergris.

In fixity and permanence of scent the animal odours are unrivalled. A handkerchief scented with ambergris retains the odour even after it has been washed: musk and civet are scarcely less permanent. To this property these substances owe their chief use in perfumery. They impart to volatile handkerchief-scents a smell which continues after the less fixed ingredients have disappeared. A favourite mixed perfume of this kind, the extrait d'ambre of the Parisian perfumes, is compounded of—

When well perfumed with this, a handkerchief, though washed, retains an odour still.

The high price which ambergris, like musk and civet, brings in the market, leads to frequent adulterations, both in this country and in those from which it is imported. The chemistry of this substance is not yet so well understood as to justify us in hoping soon to produce its odoriferous ingredient by artificial processes. Yet the observation, that dried