thyme, }
" caraway, }
" rose, } of each, 1/2 dr.
" lavender,}
" cloves, }
" santal, }

Prior to mixing, dissolve 3/4 oz. nitre in half a pint of distilled or
ordinary rose water; with this solution thoroughly wet the charcoal, and
then allow it to dry in a warm place.

When the thus nitrated charcoal is quite dry, pour over it the mixed
ottos, and stir in the flowers of benzoin. When well mixed by sifting
(the sieve is a better tool for mixing powders than the pestle and
mortar), it is finally beaten up in a mortar, with enough mucilage to
bind the whole together, and the less that is used the better.

A great variety of formulae have been published for the manufacture of
pastils; nine-tenths of them contain some woods or bark, or aromatic
seeds. Now, when such substances are burned, the chemist knows that if
the ligneous fibre contained in them undergoes combustion--the slow
combustion--materials are produced which have far from a pleasant odor;
in fact, the smell of burning wood predominates over the volatilized
aromatic ingredients; it is for this reason alone that charcoal is used
in lieu of other substances. The use of charcoal in a pastil is merely
for burning, producing, during its combustion, the heat required to
quickly volatilize the perfuming material with which it is surrounded.
The product of the combustion of charcoal is inodorous, and therefore
does not in any way interfere with the fragrance of the pastil. Such is,
however, not the case with any ingredients that may be used that are not
in themselves perfectly volatile by the aid of a small increment of
heat. If combustion takes place, which is always the case with all the
aromatic woods that are introduced into pastils, we have, besides the
volatilized otto which the wood contains, all the compounds naturally
produced by the slow burning of ligneous matter, spoiling the true odor
of the other ingredients volatilized.

There are, it is true, certain kinds of fumigation adopted occasionally
where these products are the materials sought. By such fumigation, as
when brown paper is allowed to smoulder (undergo slow combustion) in a
room for the purpose of covering bad smells. By the quick combustion of
tobacco, that is, combustion with flame, there is no odor developed, but
by its slow combustion, according to the method adopted by those who
indulge in "the weed," the familiar aroma, "the cloud," is generated,
an