The characteristic smell of Chinese or Indian ink is due to some admixture of this herb.

The origin of the use of patchouly as a perfume in Europe is curious.  A few years ago real Indian shawls bore an extravagant price, and purchasers could always distinguish them by their odor; in fact, they were perfumed with patchouly.  The French manufacturers had for some time successfully imitated the Indian fabric, but could not impart the odor.

At length they discovered the secret, and began to import the plant to perfume articles of their make, and thus palm off homespun shawls as real Indian!  From this origin the perfumers have brought it into use.  Patchouly herb is extensively used for scenting drawers in which linen is kept; for this purpose it is best to powder the leaves and put them into muslin sacks, covered with silk, after the manner of the old-fashioned lavender-bag.  In this state it is very efficacious in preventing the clothes from being attacked by moths.  Several combinations of patchouly will be given in the recipes for “bouquets and nosegays.”

PEA (SWEET).—­A very fine odor may be abstracted from the flowers of the chick-vetch by maceration in any fatty body, and then digesting the pomade produced in spirit.  It is, however, rarely manufactured, because a very close

IMITATION OF THE ESSENCE OF SWEET PEA.

can be prepared thus:—­

Extract of tuberose, 1/2 pint.
  " fleur d’orange, 1/2 "
  " rose from pomatum, 1/2 "
  " vanilla, 1 oz.

Scents, like sounds, appear to influence the olfactory nerve in certain definite degrees.  There is, as it were, an octave of odors like an octave in music; certain odors coincide, like the keys of an instrument.  Such as almond, heliotrope, vanilla, and orange-blossoms blend together, each producing different degrees of a nearly similar impression.  Again, we have citron, lemon, orange-peel, and verbena, forming a higher octave of smells, which blend in a similar manner.  The metaphor is completed by what we are pleased to call semi-odors, such as rose and rose geranium for the half note; petty grain, neroli, a black key, followed by fleur d’orange.  Then we have patchouli, sandal-wood, and vitivert, and many others running into each other.

From the odors already known we may produce, by uniting them in proper proportion, the smell of almost any flower, except jasmine.

The odor of some flowers resembles others so nearly that we are almost induced to believe them to be the same thing, or, at least, if not evolved from the plant as such, to become so by the action of the air-oxidation.  It is known that some actually are identical in composition, although produced from totally different plants, such as camphor, turpentine, rosemary.  Hence we may presume that chemistry will sooner or later produce one from the other, for with many it is merely an atom of water or an atom of oxygen that causes the difference.  It would be a grand thing to produce otto of roses from oil of rosemary, or from the rose geranium oil, and theory indicates its possibility.