The utilization of the delicious perfume of the rose was attempted, with more or less success, long prior to the comparatively modern process of distilling its essential oil. The early methods chiefly in vogue were the distillation of rose-water, and the infusion of roses in olive oil, the latter flourishing in Europe generally down to the last century, and surviving at the present day in the South of France. The butyraceous oil produced by the distillation of roses for making rose-water in this country is valueless as a perfume; and the real otto was scarcely known in British commerce before the present century. The profitable cultivation of roses for the preparation of otto is limited chiefly by climatic conditions. The odoriferous constitutent of the otto is a liquid containing oxygen, the solid hydrocarbon or stearoptene, with which it is combined, being absolutely devoid of perfume. The proportion which this inodorous solid constituents bears to the liquid perfume increases with the unsuitability of the climate, varying from about 18 per cent. in Bulgarian oil, to 35 and even 68 per cent. in rose oils distilled in France and England. This increase in the proportion of stearoptene is also shown by the progressively heightened fusing-point of rose oils from different sources: thus, while Bulgarian oil fuses at about 61° to 64° Fahr., an Indian sample required 68° Fahr.; one from the South of France, 70° to 73° Fahr.; one from Paris, 84° Fahr.; and one obtained in making rose-water in London, 86° to 89½° Fahr. Even in the Bulgarian oil, a notable difference is observed between that produced on the hills and that from the lowlands. It is, therefore, not surprising that the culture of roses, and extraction of their perfume, should have originated in the East. Persia produced rose-water at an early date, and the town of Nisibin, north-west of Mosul, was famous for it in the 14th century. Shiraz, in the 17th century, prepared both rose water and otto, for export to other parts of Persia, as well as all over India. The Perso-Indian trade in rose oil, which continued to possess considerable importance in the third quarter of the 18th century, is declining, and has nearly disappeared; but the shipments of rose-water still maintain a respectable figure. The value, in rupees, of the exports of rose-water from Bushire in 1879, were--4,000 to India, 1,500 to Java, 200 to Aden and the Red Sea, 1,000 to Muscat and dependencies, 200 to Arab coast of Persian Gulf and Bahrein, 200 to Persian coast and Mekran, and 1,000 to Zanzibar. Similar statistics relating to Lingah, in the same year, show--Otto: 400 to Arab coast of Persian Gulf, and Bahrein; and 250 to Persian coast and Mekran. And Bahrein--Persian Otto: 2,200 to Koweit, Busrah, and Bagdad. Rose-water: 200 to Arab coast of Persian Gulf, and 1,000 to Koweit, Busrah, and Bagdad.