odoriferous chemical
compounds mixed in such proportions as to produce a single harmonious
effect upon the sense of smell in a fine brand of perfume may be
compounded a dozen or twenty different ingredients and these, if they
are natural essences, are complex mixtures of a dozen or so distinct
substances. Perfumery is one of the fine arts. The perfumer, like the
orchestra leader, must know how to combine and cooerdinate his
instruments to produce a desired sensation. A Wagnerian opera requires
103 musicians. A Strauss opera requires 112. Now if the concert manager
wants to economize he will insist upon cutting down on the most
expensive musicians and dropping out some of the others, say, the
supernumerary violinists and the man who blows a single blast or tinkles
a triangle once in the course of the evening. Only the trained ear will
detect the difference and the manager can make more money.

Suppose our mercenary impresario were unable to get into the concert
hall of his famous rival. He would then listen outside the window and
analyze the sound in this fashion: "Fifty per cent. of the sound is made
by the tuba, 20 per cent. by the bass drum, 15 per cent. by the 'cello
and 10 per cent. by the clarinet. There are some other instruments, but
they are not loud and I guess if we can leave them out nobody will know
the difference." So he makes up his orchestra out of these four alone
and many people do not know the difference.

The cheap perfumer goes about it in the same way. He analyzes, for
instance, the otto or oil of roses which cost during the war $400 a
pound--if you could get it at any price--and he finds that the chief
ingredient is geraniol, costing only $5, and next is citronelol, costing
$20; then comes nerol and others. So he makes up a cheap brand of
perfumery out of three or four such compounds. But the genuine oil of
roses, like other natural essences, contains a dozen or more
constituents and to leave many of them out is like reducing an orchestra
to a few loud-sounding instruments or a painting to a three-color print.
A few years ago an attempt was made to make music electrically by
producing separately each kind of sound vibration contained in the
instruments imitated. Theoretically that seems easy, but practically the
tone was not satisfactory because the tones and overtones of a full
orchestra or even of a single violin are too numerous and complex to be
reproduced individually. So the synthetic perfum