FIKE AS AN AGENT IN HUMAN CULTUEE 211 



instance of the invention of an artificial light south of the Eskimo in 



America."®' 



CANDLE MAKING 



Materials. — Vegetal and animal substances are principally the 

 materials used in making candles, mineral substances, as paraffin, 

 coming late into the candle industr}'. In the eastern United States 

 candles made from the wax of the bayberry, Myrica cerifera, were in 

 vogue in the colonial and Revolutionary period and later. Beverley 

 says : 



"At the mouth of their rivers, and aU along the sea and bay, and 

 near many of their creeks and swamps, grows the myrtle, bearing a 

 berr}', of which they make a hard, brittle wax, of a curious green 

 color, which by refining becomes almost transparent. Of tliis they 

 make candles, which are never greasie to the touch, nor melt with 

 Ijring in the hottest weather. Neither does the snuff of these ever 

 offend the smell, like that of a tallow candle, but instead of it yields 

 a pleasant fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch, that nice 

 people often put them out on purpose to have the incense of the 

 expiring snuff. 



" The melting of these berries is said to have been first found out 

 by a surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things with 

 a salve made of them. This discovery is very modern, notwithstand- 

 ing these countries have been so long settled. 



"The method of managing these berries is by boiling them 

 in water till they come to be entirely dissolved, except the stone 

 or seed, which amounts in quantity to about half the bulk of the 

 berry, the biggest of which is something less than a corn of pepper."'" 



In Demerara also candles equal to wax were made from the seeds 

 of a large tree called dali, Virola sebijlors. A mj/rica in northern 

 Granada and Peru yields candle wax. The wax of the Klopstoclcia 

 cerifera, carnauba of northern Brazil, and the Ceroxylon or wax palm 

 was used for candle making. 



In India and the Far East the vegetable wax industry is quite ex- 

 tensive. The Japanese make candles from the wax derived from 

 seeds of several species of the oiu"ushi or lacquer tree, Rhtis succodanea, 

 and others of this genus. In China vegetable wax is procured in 

 commerical quantities from the seeds of Stillingia sehifera and Croton 

 sebiferum, the latter called the tallow tree in India, where it also is an 

 important source of wax. 



Animal fats in candle making. — Before the era of chemical and 

 technical science the fat of cattle and sheep was used in only a slightly 

 modified state to make candles by domestic industry. On the estab- 



w The American Race, New York, 1891, p. 238. 

 *> Beverley's history of Virginia, 1722, pp. 119-120. 



102837—26 -15 



