CHAPTER XXVIII.. Wax.

WAX.

+Wax+ is a solid compact unctuous substance, generally of a yellow colour. It is secreted by animals and vegetables, but the vegetable secretion of it is often combined with resin.

+Bees-wax+ may be said to be a concrete animal oil, holding the same relation to the fixed oils that resin does to the essential oils. It is secreted by certain small sacklets on the body of the bee, as occasion requires, for constructing the combs in which the family provision and the young brood are deposited; the wax of commerce is procured by melting down these combs, in the manner already described.

Prime wax is of a bright yellow colour and an agreeable odour, somewhat like that of honey. The best is procured from combs which have been either wholly unoccupied, or occupied by nothing but honey. When first secreted, it is white, semitransparent, and very fragile: it afterwards becomes stronger, and assumes more or less of a yellow hue. This deepening of colour is owing, partly, to its being covered with a yellowish varnish by the bees, (for an account of which see "Architecture" and "Propolis,") and is partly the effect of age.

Independently of its colour, the goodness of wax may also be estimated by the passing of the thumb nail forcibly over its surface: if good, the nail will pass with a kind of jerk; but if no obstruction be felt, the wax may be looked upon as adulterated with suet, or some similar substance.

The average quantity yielded by a common hive, is about half a pound of wax to fifteen pounds of honey; the quantity of both may be considerably increased by storifying.

+White wax+ is nothing more than the yellow wax that has been exposed in thin flakes or shreds to the action of the sun and air. There is an apparatus for melting and reducing the wax into shreds or ribbands, but the process of conversion, under any circumstances, is tedious and dependent on the weather. "The following," says Mr. Parkes in his Chemical Essays, "is the usual process, as it is conducted in England. Common bees-wax is melted upon hot water; and when in a fluid state, it is laded out of the copper, together with a part of the water, into a wooden vessel; and in this it is allowed to remain a few hours, for the impurities to subside from it. The purified wax is then put, while still hot, into a cullender full of holes, through which it runs, and falls upon a revolving metallic roller, which dips into cold water contained in a vessel placed underneath. As the melted wax runs through the cullender upon the revolving roller, the motion of the cylinder forms it into thin shavings, which cool as they come in contact with the water, and fall in an accumulated heap into the water below. These shavings of wax, being now in a suitable form for absorbing oxygen, are taken out of the tub, and exposed in a field to the action of the atmosphere, till they become sufficiently white."

Bees-wax forms a considerable article of commerce, and large quantities of it are annually imported into this country from the Baltic, the Levant, the Barbary Coast, and North America. In some parts of Europe and America wax is very extensively employed in the religious ceremonies of the inhabitants. Humboldt informs us that upwards of 80,000 pounds worth is annually imported from Cuba to New Spain, and that the total export from that island in 1803 was worth upwards of 130,000l. By far the greater part of this wax is the produce of the hive-bee, though no inconsiderable quantity is procured also from various species of wild bees, as well as from certain trees which I shall notice presently.

Upon this subject a modern writer, after lamenting the increasing neglect of bee-culture in this country, has not hesitated to use the following contemptuous, though somewhat extravagant, language. "There is hardly bees-wax enough produced in England to answer the demand for lip-salve alone; but importation from America supplies all our wants, for the quantity obtained in that country is annually increasing." "Little thinks the ball-room beauty, when the tapers are almost burnt out, that the wax by whose light her charms have been exalted was once hidden in the bells and cups of innumerable flowers, shedding perfume over the silent valleys of the Susquehanna, or nodding at their own reflected colours in the waters of the Potomac and Delaware."

The uses of wax in making candles, ointments, &c. are well known.

According to Buffon, the bees-wax of tropical climates is too soft for any but medicinal purposes.

There is a species of wax, which is generally regarded as of vegetable origin, and which is afforded by various trees, plants and fruits. The light down which silvers over the surface of prunes and other stone fruits, has been shown by M. Proust to be wax, the leaves and stem of the Ceroxylon also, afford it in considerable quantity, if bruised and boiled in water; but the trees which afford it in greatest abundance, are the Myrica cerifera angustifolia or wax-tree of Louisiana, and the Myrica cerifera latifolia of Pennsylvania, Carolina, and Virginia. The latter is now naturalized in France: it flourishes also in the dry lands of Prussia, and, from the productiveness of its berries, it seems surprising that its culture is not more general.

The mode in which this myrtle wax is obtained is as follows. Towards the end of autumn the natives gather the ripe berries, boil them in water, skim off the wax which rises, strain it off from its impurities, and set it to drain, after which, they remelt and form it into masses. Four pounds of berries yield about one pound of wax.

From the wax thus procured, they make soap and candles. The soap manufactured from it is said to be excellent, and to wash linen perfectly white; the candles afford a good light, without smoke or guttering; their perfume is highly agreeable, not only during the time that they are burning, but for a considerable time afterwards.

Mr. Sparrman suspects that myrtle wax is deposited upon the berries by insects, and Du Valde has given an account of a white wax made by small insects, round the branches of a tree in China, in great quantity, which is there collected for medical and economical purposes. (Description of China, vol. i. page 230.) Myrtle wax therefore may not be a vegetable product.

According to the experiments of M. Cadet and Dr. Bostock, this myrtle wax differs in some respects from, bees-wax. It differs from it in colour, different specimens of it assuming different shades of yellowish green: its smell is also different; myrtle wax, when fresh, emitting a fragrant balsamic odour. It has in part the tenacity without the unctuosity of bees-wax, and somewhat of the brittleness of resin. Its specific gravity is greater, insomuch that it sinks in water, whereas bees-wax floats upon it; and it is not so easily bleached to form white wax.

Analysis of Wax.

Carbon 81,79 Oxygen 5,54 Hydrogen 12,67

"The formation of resin and wax has been explained thus:--That when a volatile or a fixed oil is expelled out of plants, and has its surface exposed to the air, the first becomes a resin by losing hydrogen, the second a wax by absorbing oxygen."--Parkes's Chemical Catechism, p. 244, 11th edit.