It is a hunter’s prescription that comes in use. You will hear of it along the Saranac, or up in the Franconia region, where the pines and spruces yield fresh resins for its making. It is popular there for its efficacy in keeping the black-flies and musquitoes away; yet even hunters bear witness to its excellence in leaving the skin fair and innocent. Thus runs the formula, simple enough, in all conscience, yet how few will have the boldness to try it: Mix one spoonful of the best _tar_ in a pint of pure olive or almond-oil, by heating the two together in a tin cup set in boiling water. Stir till completely mixed and smooth, putting in more oil if the compound is too thick to run easily. Rub this on the face when going to bed, and lay patches of soft old cloth on the cheeks and forehead to keep the tar from rubbing off. The bed-linen must be protected by old sheets folded and thrown over the pillows. The odor, when mixed with oil, is not strong enough to be unpleasant--some people fancy its suggestion of aromatic pine breath--and the black, unpleasant mask washes off easily with warm water and soap. The skin comes out, after several applications, soft, moist, and tinted like a baby’s. Certainly this wood ointment is preferable to the household remedy for coarse skins of wetting in buttermilk. Further, it effaces incipient wrinkles by softening and refining the skin. The French have long used turpentine to efface the marks of age, but the olive-tar is pleasanter. A pint of best olive-oil costs about forty cents at the grocer’s; for the tar apply to the druggist, who keeps it on hand for inhaling. A spoonful of the mixture put in the water vase of a stove gives a faint pine odor to the air of a room, which is very soothing to weak lungs. Physicians often recommend it.