PRACTICAL PERFUMERY AND INSTRUMENTATION 211 and this I think will frequently give the perfumer or the flavouring chemist some clue as to what he is doing. I do not know to what extent this is useful, because I am not a perfumer but, nevertheless, I think it ought to be of some help to somebody. THE LECTURER: With me it is usually the other way round. It is the analyst who comes to me and says "What is this ?". MR. S. J. HAWKES: I have done that too. Is this not a good cause for co-operation ? You supply me with the mixture and I will supply the answer we will then get together and find out what it all is. THE LECTURER: This is precisely the point I would like to make. The analysts' outlook on the problem is different. They expect the perfumer to be subjective in his approach to perfumery, and yet at the same time practically tell him what he ought to do. To my mind the two must go together one can not exist without the other. No technologist--no new products. No sale for our compounds--no technologist. It is not true that the perfumer is reluctant to accept instrumentation. He is very interested, but must also make use of a good deal of common sense. If something looks wrong he must not accept it. Someone has mentioned something about eventually making perfumes by methods where the instrument has found the answer, and we then translate it into practice. I do not think this will ever be possible. Anything creative, like writing a piece of music or poetry, is a subject in a man's mind, and it is so with perfumery. Can a machine which returns but what you feed into it, possibly give an answer ? What sort of perfume is it likely to be when everyone uses exactly the same process for manufacture, uses the same standard, replaces all the essentiM oils with reconstitutes ? There will be no great merit, everything will be classified into certain types of perfume and that will be that. No more imagination, only chemists, and no perfumers !

212 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS LETTER TO THE EDITOR SIR,--I note that the report in the Journal [14 28 (1963)] of the paper by Klouwen, Kok and Ruys, omits to mention a point raised in the ensuing discussion. Dr. Klouwen has compared the economies of the two oxalactone pro- cesses, the more recent one by Ogorodnikova et al, and the older one described by Collaud in Brit. Pat.490,044, solely on the basis of ease of execution. As Dr. Klouwen drew the conclusion that the first process was more economical, I remarked that one also had to consider the fact that the second process gave a yield of 90% as against 80% in the other one. In view of the high material costs involved, this difference in yield was of sufficient import- ance to give an overall advantage to Collaud's process. This fact was acknowledged by Dr. Klouwen. Yours faithfully, Givaudan, S.A., Y.-R. NAVES. Vernier-Geneve, Switzerland. SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN Election of Honorary Members A SPECIAL .MEETING was held at the Royal Society of Arts, John Adam Street, London, W.C.2, on Tuesday, 26th February 1963. 32 Members and Associates were present. The Chair was taken by the President, Mr. G. A. C. Pitt, who called on Mr. S. J. Bush to propose the motion that H. W. HIBBOTT, M.Sc., Ph.D., F.R.I.C., be elected an Honorary Member of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists of Great Britain. Mr. A. Herzka seconded the motion, which was put to the vote and carried unanimously. The Chairman then called on Sir. G. M. Howard to propose the motion that A. W. MIDDLETON, Ph.D., F.R.I.C., be elected an Honorary Member of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists of Great Britain. Dr. B. A. Scott seconded the motion, which was put to the vote and carried unanimously. Increase of Membership Fees 2•.T THE Special Meeting held at the Royal Society of Arts, John Adam Street, London, W.C.2, on 26th February, the meeting, by an overwhelming majority, approved an increase in membership subscriptions, operative from 1st April 1963. The new rates are: Meanhers between the ages of 30 and 65, oe4 per year. Members under the age of 30, and above the age of 65, •3 per year. Associates oe3 and oe2 respectively. Journal for Students BY a decision of the Council, students attending the Diploma Course will, in future, receive copies of the Journal free of charge.