then naming each substance by its odor. This is a very difficult thing to do, for, although we can generally distinguish between the odors of two substances, even if they are very similar, it is often impossible to name the substances to which the odors belong. The difficulty arises principally from the vagueness with which we speak of smells. While we refer to colors in a definite way, and while we can describe a sound as minutely as we like by giving its pitch and quality, we cannot speak of 'the mouldy smell' or 'the stuffy smell' with the same precision that we can speak of the color violet or of the sound called a whistle. The sense of smell is devoid of description; it has no language, and from this point of view is indeed undeveloped. The best we can do is to divide odors into ethereal, aromatic, garlicy, disgusting, and nauseating smells - all vague terms, for into each group there fall thousands of different odors, each of which is easily distinguished by us.

The simple organ of smell thus appears to have anything but a simple function. We can to some extent understand how the ear and the eye perform their duties, for we are helped by their complex appearance, but what can one make of the olfactory organ a mass of cells with hairs, and a few pigment cells? What key does the structure give us? Very little; it is all too simple, and thus mysterious. Many theories have been put forward, some likely, some impossible, to explain how these cells function; no single one can be accepted without reservation, but it may interest the reader to be told the little we know.

Anything we smell must be in a gaseous state, for it has to be carried to the nostrils in the air that we breathe. It may be in the inspired air, as when we smell a perfume, or in the expired air passing from the region of

the mouth and throat into the nose, as are the substances that are responsible for the flavor of food and drink; for flavor is not perceived by the sense of taste, but by the sense of smell, as anyone who has had his nose blocked up by a cold will realize. The odorous substance is thus brought into contact with the hairs of the olfactory cells, which are apparently stimulated, and a sensation of smell results. This is agreed; but how does the stimulation occur? Is it chemical, the odorous substance affecting the hairs like a chemical reagent, or is it physical, depending on waves in the air or ether, as is the case in the senses of hearing and sight? Here admitted fact ends, and speculation begins; some people claim that the effect is chemical, and others that it is physical.

We seek in vain for any relation between chemical constitution and smell; although certain substances that are called 'aromatics' have both the same odor and a similar chemical constitution, constitution, and although certain compounds of arsenic and phosphorus smell of garlic, any relation between chemical composition and odor breaks down completely as we examine it more closely. Artificial and natural musk, for instance, have the same odor, but are chemically utterly different; prussic acid and nitrobenzol smell the same, but are totally unlike in structure. Many other examples could be given of the failure of this suggestion, and we have therefore to seek explanations on other lines.

Impressed by this failure, physiologists have been led to suggest that the action of odorous substances may be not chemical but physical. The minute particles of which the substances are made up — particles called molecules are known to be in a state of very rapid vibration, and it is supposed that these rapid movements

set up in the surrounding air little waves, just as the movement of a stone sets up ripples on a pond. These tiny waves are then propagated through the air in the nose, and fall on the hairs of the olfactory cells, which are caused to rock to and fro thereby; the movements of the hairs thus set up an impulse in the cell to which they are attached, the impulse is carried to the brain, and there interpreted as a smell. In this way the vibrating molecules act somewhat like a wireless transmitter, and the hairs of the cells like a detector, the principal difference being that the waves, instead of being metres in length, are exceedingly shortshorter, indeed, than the waves of light. Since a molecule of camphor vibrates at a different rate from a molecule of, say, turpentine, each sets up its own particular length of wave; the hairs of the olfactory cells are stimulated in the one case by a wave of a particular length, and in the other by one which is perhaps shorter; in this way it comes about that camphor is recognized as smelling differently from turpentine, and in the same way we can have as many different kinds of smell recognized as there are lengths of wave that can be generated and received.

To this theory, too, there are some serious objections, for, if there were not, the sense of smell would not be the mystery it is. According to the theory, prussic acid should smell the same as steam, for the waves generated are identical. Of course, they do not smell the same, for one is odorless while the other smells powerfully of almonds. Thus we have still the unsolved problem; the chemical explanation fails us, and the physical explanation fails us too - neither accounts for the facts, and the sense of smell guards its secrets. It may be, of course, that both theories are true in part, or that the

exceptions are only apparent exceptions that would disappear if we knew the facts more fully, but so far we have to admit defeat.

Nor does the problem end with the olfactory cells which, because they terminate in nerves, we take to be the principal receiving elements, for it seems that the pigment cells that surround them also play their part in the perception of odors. In some animals whose sense of smell is very acute, such as the dog and the deer, these pigment cells are very prominent, and richly loaded with their colored material. On the other hand, in animals with a poor sense of smell, such as seals, there are very few pigment cells, and in albinos, which have no pigment cells at all, we find the sense of smell almost absent. This fact is well known to sheeprearers in certain parts of the world, for they refuse to rear albino sheep, knowing well that they will be unable, because of their poorly developed sense of smell, to detect poisonous plants, and that sooner or later they will die through eating herbs which their better-equipped brethren would avoid. The part played by the pigment cells also explains why dark-skinned races have a better sense of smell than the white races, and also why our sense of smell becomes more acute as we grow older, unlike other sense, any - for with advancing age more pigment is laid down among the olfactory cells.

We are perhaps rather apt to look upon the sense of smell as one that is fixed and unalterable; we know that eyesight fails with age, and that the sense of hearing is subject to very diverse modifications, but so fixed an idea have we of the simplicity of the olfactory sense that we never think that equally interesting observations attach themselves to it. As a matter of fact, recent investigations have

shown that there are as many curiosities attached to this sense as to any other. As I have said, it is the only sense that becomes more acute with age. Infants, as soon as they are born, perceive odors, but apparently not strongly; as the child grows up, the sense slowly develops until about the age of fourteen, when a curious difference between the olfaction of the male and the female makes its appearance. After this age, not only has the female a more acute sense of smell than has the male, but each prefers a different kind of odorous substance. Men like such odors as pine oil, musk, and cedar oil, while women as a rule dislike them. Women, on the other hand, show a preference for scents that men dislike, especially for camphor, menthol, and citronella. Why these differences should exist is not known, but they are very sharply marked. It has been suggested that they may be based on those factors that are said to determine the more acute sense of smell in females excessive smoking among men, this tending to dull the sense, and the greater need for olfaction in women, since they engage in cooking and the domestic arts. If this be the reason, the differences will soon disappear with the advance of modern tendencies.

As we grow older the sense of smell becomes, not only more acute, but more discriminating. Such tastes as the liking for high game and overripe cheese are not natural; they are acquired only as age advances, and are quite foreign to young people. The development as we grow older is also connected with another fact: as we have increasing experience we tend to take more notice of our sensations. From this point of view the sense of smell is eminently adapted to education, for if we pay attention to our perceptions of odors, as a winetaster

or a gourmet does, we can easily cultivate the sense and increase its discriminating powers. This occurs to an extraordinary extent in a few people who have so keen a sense of smell that they can distinguish people by their odor, and even streets by their own peculiar aroma. Whitechapel, I dare say, smells differently from Mayfair, and no doubt many could recognize the difference; but how many do? Not very many, for most of us think that we can get on quite well without the sense of olfaction, so far as matters of ordinary life are concerned, and so become accustomed to allow our sensations to pass unnoticed. But because they are unnoticed, we are by no means uninfluenced by them.

This is just what constitutes the peculiarity of the sense of smell. We get sensations, as with any other sense, but for some peculiar reason they do not always pass over the threshold into consciousness, and, if they do pass, they are frequently unrecognizably altered in the process. Take an example: You may go to a disused house, and as you enter you feel a curious and unexplainable repugnance to the place. The idea cannot be shaken off, and you elaborate it half unconsciously; you say you feel that there is something sinister about the place, and you may even end by believing that it is haunted. All that has really happened, in nine cases out of ten, is that your sense of smell, more alert than you give it credit to be, has informed you that the place smells unventilated and musty. But this sensation does not pass into consciousness as it stands - unless it is a very strong one and the house actually reeks of something; it becomes changed, transposed into something other than a mere perception of smell, and gives rise to a vague fear and feeling of discomfort. Sensations of smell are almost unique in this

respect; relegated to unused attics of our minds, they appear in unrecognized forms through other channels. Many of the unexplained antipathies that certain people possess as, for instance, the very general dislike of cats and the ability of knowing, by a kind of vague feeling, when one of the detested creatures is in a room can be explained in a somewhat similar way. It is quite likely that under these circumstances one is warned of the cat's presence by an unnoticed sensation of smell.

Not only is the olfactory sense itself a very subsidiary one for the purposes of everyday life, but the memory of odors is in most people exceedingly defective. Out of every hundred people, only about ten or fifteen can recollect in a realistic way a particular odor; if you ask the average person to call up in his mind the smell of roses, he will probably fail completely. Sometimes by concentrating his mind on a scene which, in his past experience, was associated with roses, he may succeed, but even then the realism of the memory in no way compares with the actual sensation of the fragrance

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of the flowers. This is, of course, inevitable result of our paying so little attention to our olfactory sensations. But suppose that we now reverse the process, and give the person roses to smell, perferably when his mind is unoccupied by any particular train of thought; at once, in nine cases out of ten, some past scene rises into his mind, emotions are let loose, and he recalls things long past that he could not have remembered by the greatest effort. Odors are an unfailing key to the subconscious, and arouse more emotions than do any other sensation.

The sense of smell is thus one of those little islands untouched by the advance of science, unclaimed for its proper use; we do not know how the olfactory organ functions, we know little about olfactory memory, we do not know enough about the potentialities of the sense to employ it usefully. There are many such little islands, but there are few on which the amateur investigator, armed with nothing but his interest and a power of observation, can advance so safely and with such prospects of finding what others have missed in their search.

DRAMATIC critics have not been wanting in Germany to protest against the number of English plays imported to their stage-perhaps a typical example of Reviewers' Grouch, since there is no reason to suppose that these plays have not answered a genuine demand on the part of theatregoers. Max Reinhardt, the producer chiefly culpable, said as much not long ago to a correspondent of the Observer. "The modern British playwright is giving the world what it wants to-day. I am astounded at the immense amount of dramatic talent now being manifested in England, and I have bought a number of new plays for production in Berlin.' This remark was made during a rehearsal of Somerset Maugham's Victoria, and the correspondent notes that Frederick Lonsdale's comedy, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, was simultaneously in preparation by Barnowsky, another famous Berlin manager.

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Herr Reinhardt pursued his observations by suggesting that this taste for English drama is due to the atmosphere of lightness and humor with which it handles modern conditions. "This the public wants, and this we cannot get just now from any other country. But I personally cannot see that we are doing any more for the reputation of the British playwright than we have always done. What about Shaw's reputation having been made here, and the fact that Wilde has never been forgotten? It seems to me to lie in the fact of Germany's geographical

position that foreign plays will always be welcomed here whatever the Germans are writing. Did we not play Ibsen when nobody else did? And Tolstoi? And Italian plays of all descriptions? The German theatre has welcomed every sort of French play. To-day these have not the success of the English drama here. It is only because England is giving us what nobody else can give just now that we are putting on English plays in preference to others.'

Further to the east English literature is coming into its own in a no less telling way. A firm of publishers in Prague is designing a series of translations from English and American classic writers to be known as the 'Standard Library.' Karel Čapek, the best known of contemporary Czech writers, — by virtue chiefly of R. U. R., has written to the editor of this library expressing great enthusiasm for the project, and making some interesting generalizations about the English temperament in literature. He observes that a sojourn in England impressed upon him that the most remarkable thing about the country is that it is all so like English literature. 'I am still uncertain,' he says, with perhaps an ironical allusion to Taine's famous theories about the effect of climate on literature, - 'whether it is the English climate that has such an influence on English literature, or whether, on the contrary, English literature is the cause of the English climate and other customs.'