But while the victory of the chemist is by no means so complete as it is in the matter of the dye-stuffs, research is steadily going on, and the next few years will almost certainly witness an evergrowing conquest over this department of natural chemistry.
In the meantime chemists are applying themselves to the creation of new varieties of perfume, and, if we may judge from those disseminated by certain ladies in public places, with a success that startles and even irritates us. Compared with them, the love-philtres of olden days must have been but feeble things.
“How d’you know you're in the right ’bus ?” asked the 'bus conductor of the blind man who was confidently boarding his vehicle.
“”This is the Maida Vale ’bus,” was the contemptuous reply. “I knows it by the smell o’ musk.”
The inexhaustible capacity of the olfactory organ, to which we alluded above, is by no means its only marvel. It is also of the most wonderful delicacy, equalling, even if it does not surpass, in this respect, the sensitiveness of the eye to light.
This property of the smell-organ has been scientifically estimated. There are many ways of doing so, that by means of Zwaardemaker’s olfactometer being perhaps the most popular :
