The art of perfumery : and the methods of obtaining odours of plants. With instructions for the manufacture of perfumes ... to which is added an appendix on preparing artificial fruit-essences, etc / [George William Septimus Piesse].

  • Piesse, G. W. Septimus (George William Septimus), 1820-1882.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The art of perfumery : and the methods of obtaining odours of plants. With instructions for the manufacture of perfumes ... to which is added an appendix on preparing artificial fruit-essences, etc / [George William Septimus Piesse]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pounds. It is thus evident that Britannia does not “turn up her nose ” at the odour of nutmeg and mace ! When the crops of spice have been superabundant, and the price, in consequence, likely to be reduced, the same ignorant spirit before mentioned has actuated the Dutch to destroy immense quantities of the fruit rather than suffer the market price to be lowered. When Sir William Temple was at Amsterdam, a merchant who had returned from Banda assured him that “ at one time he saw three piles of nutmegs burnt, each of which was more than a church of ordinary dimensions could hold. ’ Mr. Wilcocks, the translator of Stavarinus's Travels, relates that he beheld such a conflagration of cloves, nutmegs, and cinnamon, upon the island of Newland, near Middleburgh, in Zealand, as perfumed the air with their peculiar fragrance for many miles round. Balfour says, that “in 1814, when the Mo- luccas were in the possession of the English, the number of nutmeg-trees planted out was estimated at 570,500, of which 480,000 were in bearing. The produce of nutmegs in the Moluccas has been reckoned at from 600,000 to 700,000 pounds per annum, of which half goes to Europe, and about one-fourth that quantity of mace. The annual consumption of nutmegs in Britain is said to be 140,000 pounds. The nutmeg-tree, like many others, yields two distinct odorous substances, that is, otto of mace (see Mace, page 88), and otto of nutmeg. The otto of nutmeg, of which we have here to speak, is a beautiful white and transparent fluid, having an intense fragrance of the nut, from which it is easily procured by distillation. It enters into the composition of numerous perfumery preparations, of which the Frangipanni series are examples. As it is moie powerful than cloves, it must be used sparingly; i