PERFUMED BOOK-MARKERS.

We have seen that leather can be impregnated with odoriferous substances, in the manufacture of peau d’Espagne; just so is card-board treated prior to being made up into book-marks.  In finishing them for sale, taste alone dictates their design; some are ornamented with beads, others with embroidery.

CASSOLETTES AND PRINTANIERS.

Cassolettes and Printaniers are little ivory boxes, of various designs, perforated in order to allow the escape of the odors contained therein.  The paste used for filling these “ivory palaces whereby we are made glad,” is composed of equal parts of grain musk, ambergris, seeds of the vanilla-pod, otto of roses, and orris powder, with enough gum acacia, or gum tragacantha, to work the whole together into a paste.  These things are now principally used for perfuming the pocket or reticule, much in the same way that ornamental silver and gold vinagrettes are used.

PASTILS.

There is no doubt whatever that the origin of the use of pastils, or pastilles, as they are more often called, from the French, has been derived from the use of incense at the altars of the temples during the religious services:—­“According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot (Zacharias’) was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.” (Luke 1:9.) “And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense....  And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning when he dresseth the lamps, and at even when he lighteth the lamps he shall burn incense upon it.” (Exodus 30.)

An analogous practice is in use to the present day in the Roman Catholic churches, but, instead of being consumed upon an altar, the incense is burned in a censer, as doubtless many of our readers have seen.  “As soon as the signal was given by the chief priest the incense was kindled, the holy place was filled with perfume, and the congregation without joined in prayers.” (Carpenters Temple service of the Hebrews.)

THE CENSER.

“On the walls of every temple in Egypt, from Meroee to Memphis, the censer is depicted smoking before the presiding deity of the place; on the walls of the tombs glow in bright colors the preparation of spices and perfumes.”  In the British Museum there is a vase (No. 2595) the body of which is intended to contain a lamp, the sides being perforated to admit the heat from the flame to act upon the projecting tubes; which are intended to contain ottos of flowers placed in the small vases at the end of the tubes; the heat volatilizes the ottos, and quickly perfumes an apartment.  This vase or censer is from an Egyptian catacomb.

[Illustration:  The Censer.]