20 



RANDOM NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. 



These huge piles of eaith which accumulate 

 exert such a pressure near the honey-combed 

 land, that the wax is often forced out of the 

 cracks with such rapidit}- that the workmen 

 are unable to save themselves. It once hap- 

 pened in a shaft 321 feet deep, that the en- 

 tire shaft was suddenly' filled to the mouth with 

 wax. The veins of wax are from sixteen to 

 nineteen inches thick. These layers render 

 the strata rather uncertain — that is, the^- 

 slip on each other. Great fires have also oc- 

 curred in the mines. At Borislau, in Gala- 

 cia, in 1864, the mines produced 45,000 hun- 

 dred weight of earth wax. 



The paraffin is softer and less transparent 

 than that from brown coal tar, and has a 

 fusing point of 60 deg. C., although some- 

 times as low as 45 deg. C. All ozocerite 

 oils on purification give a beautiful light 

 yellow oil of 0.81 specific gravity, of great 

 illuminating power and with a weak, mild 

 odor. The lowest specific gravity of ozo- 

 cerite is 0.74, while the highest is only 0.828, 

 hence the oil has a low specific gravity and 

 a high boiling-point. Its inflammability is 

 therefore less than that of petroleum. The 

 lightness of ozocerite oil, together with its 

 large paraffin content, contradict the general 

 idea that ozocerite is formed b}' the evap- 

 oration of petroleum. It must have been 

 formed in some other way, of which we are 

 still in doubt, perhaps, as Perutz states, by 

 the oxidation of naphtha. 



Ozocerite seems to change slighth' by 

 exposure to the air. A piece exposed to 

 the air for a year became ash gray upon the 

 upper surface, while on the bottom it re- 

 mained a blackish brown. Ozocerite has 

 been found in South Ambo}-, N. J., in the 

 clay field of Mr. Otto Ernst. In a letter to 

 Professor Smock, of Rutgers College, he 

 says : " I do not think it likely I shall find 

 any paying quantities of it, though I recollect 

 finding a lump ten times as large some 3'ears 

 ago. Its low specific gravit}' probably car- 

 ried it here by water, from the petroleum 

 fields. An analysis of this specimen gave : 



Carbon ..... 86.46 per cent. 



Hydrogen 12.82 " 



99.29 per cent. 

 Very little has been made public concern- 

 ing improvements in making paraffin from 

 ozocerite, and manufacturers keep their ex- 

 perience as secret as possible. In Vienna 



there are five factories in which are made 

 white wax, wax candles, wax matches, yel- 

 low beeswax, and colored tapers. In P^urope 

 large quantities of ozocerite are used to wax 

 the floors of the houses. 



In the United States the most important 

 uses made of ozocerite are to make chewing 

 gum and to adulterate beeswax. 



Reptiles and Batrachians of Rhode Island. 



BY HERMON C. BUMPUS. 



Number VI. 



Though the snakes of our state are few 

 in number they are, nevertheless, likely- to 

 be confounded, the several species, having 

 considerable range of variation, giving the 

 amateur no little trouble in the determina- 

 tion of their identit}'. Man}', during their 

 earlier growth, are quite differently marked 

 from their adult stage, and even the adults 

 of the same species, from different locali- 

 ties, exhibit considerable variation. The 

 onlj- characters which can, to any extent, 

 be relied upon are those presented by the 

 arrangement of the scales, and b}^ the 

 dentition. The plates of the head and scales 

 of the abdominal region are particularlj^ val- 

 uable in separating the genera, and to this 

 end will be used in the following plan. It 



