( 804 ) 
» 
- NATURAL HISTORY. 
On the Wax Tree of Louisiana and 
Pensylvania, by Charles Louis 
Cadet, of the College of Phar- 
macy, from the Annales De Chi- 
mic. 
MULTITUDE of plants, as 
the croton scbiferum, the 
tomex sebefera, loureiro, the pop- 
Jar, the alder, the pine, yield by 
decoction, a concrete inflammable 
- matter, more or less resembling tal- 
low or wax; that is to say, a fixed 
oil, saturated with oxygen. The 
Jight down, which is called the 
flower of fruits, and which silvers 
the surface of plums and other 
smooth-skinned fruits, is a wax, as 
_°M..Proust has demonstrated. But 
e tree which affords this. substance 
in the greatest abundance, that which 
on more than one account deserves 
the attention of agriculturists, che- 
mists, physicians, and commercial 
men, is the myrica cerifera, or wax 
tree. ; 
We find, in the History of the 
Academy of Sciences for the yeais 
1722, and 1725, M. Alexandre, a 
‘surgeon and correspondent of M. 
‘Mairan’s,had observed, in Louisiana, 
a tree of the height of a cherry tree, 
having the appearance of a myrtle, 
and nearly the same smell, bearing 
a berry of the size of a coriander 
seed. These berries, of an ash-grey 
-tables, mentions only the Virginia 
colour, contained, he said, a small, 
hard, round kernel, covered with a 
glossy wax, which is separated by 
boiling the berries in water, ‘This 
wax is drier and more friable than 
the common wax. The natives of 
the country make candles of it. M, 
Alexandre added, ‘* this berry is 
commonly charged with a beautiful 
lake colour, and stains the fingers 
if merely squeezed between them, 
but only at a particular time of the 
Fear 
M. Alexandre likewise discover- 
ed, that the liquor in which the ber- 
ries have been boiled, when poured 
away aud evaporated to the consist- 
ence of an extraét, having previously 
skimmed off the wax, was capable 
of stopping the most violent dysen- 
teries. 
The useful properties belonging 
to this tree, should induce scientific 
men to make enquiries, for the pur- 
pose of discoyering what varieties 
there are of this vegetable, and what 
care is requisite for its cultivation. 
It appears to haye been considered 
a long time as merely an object of 
curiosity. 
Linneus, in his System of Vege- — 
wax tree, myrica cerifera, with 
lanceolated, or rather dentated, 
leaves, with a stem like a tree. 
I wrote to M. Ventenat, re- 
questing 
