vitivert, or benzoin; the manufacturer using his judgment and discretion
as to which of these materials are to be employed, choosing, of course,
those which are most compatible with the odor he is making.

The power which these bodies have of "fixing" a volatile substance,
renders them valuable to the perfumer, independent of their aroma, which
is due in many cases to benzoic acid, slightly modified by an esential
oil peculiar to each substance, and which is taken up by the alcohol,
together with a portion of resin. When the perfume is put upon a
handkerchief, the most volatile bodies disappear first: thus, after the
alcohol has evaporated, the odor of the ottos appear stronger; if it
contains any resinous body, the ottos are held in solution, as it were,
by the resin, and thus retained on the fabric. Supposing a perfume to be
made of otto only, without any "fixing" substance, then, as the perfume
"dies away," the olfactory nerve, if tutored, will detect its
composition, for it spontaneously analyzes itself, no two ottos having
the same volatility: thus, make a mixture of rose, jasmine, and
patchouly; the jasmine predominates first, then the rose, and, lastly,
the patchouly, which will be found hours after the others have
disappeared.

SYRINGA.--The flowers of the _Philadelphus coronarius_, or
common garden syringa, have an intense odor resembling the
orange-blossom; so much so, that in America the plant is often termed
"mock orange." A great deal of the pomatum sold as pommade surfin, à la
fleur d'orange, by the manufacturers of Cannes, is nothing more than
fine suet perfumed with syringa blossoms by the maceration process.
Fine syringa pomade could be made in England at a quarter the cost of
what is paid for the so-called orange pomatum.