92 FARADAY 



I have here also a substance brought from Japan since we 

 have forced an entrance into that out-of-the-way place a 

 sort of wax which a kind friend has sent me, and which 

 forms a new material for the manufacture of candles. 



/ And how are these candles made? I have told you about 

 dips, and I will show you how moulds are made. Let us 

 imagine any of these candles to be made of materials which 

 can be cast. " Cast ! " you say. " Why, a candle is a thing 

 that melts, and surely if you can melt it you can cast it." 

 Not so. It is wonderful, in the progress of manufacture, 



' and in the consideration of the means best fitted to produce 

 the required result, how things turn up which one would 

 not expect beforehand. Candles can not always be cast. A 

 wax candle can never be cast. It is made by a particular 

 process which I can illustrate in a minute or two, but I must 

 not spend much time on it. Wax is a thing which, burning 

 so well, and melting so easily in a candle, can not be cast. 

 However, let us take a material that can be cast. Here is 

 a frame, with a number of moulds fastened in it. The first 

 thing to be done is to put a wick through them. Here is 

 one a plaited wick, which does not require snuffing ( 3 ) 

 supported by a little wire. It goes to the bottom, where it is 

 pegged in; the little peg holCing the cotton tight, and stopping 

 the aperture so that nothing fluid shall run out. At the 

 upper part there is a little bar placed across, which stretches 

 the cotton and holds it in the mould. The tallow is then 

 melted, and the moulds are filled. After a certain time, when 

 the moulds are cool, the excess of tallow is poured off at one 

 corner, and then cleaned off altogether, and the ends of the 

 wick cut away. The candles alone then remain in the mould, 

 and you have only to upset them, as I am doing, when out 

 they tumble, for the candles are made in the form of cones, 

 being narrower at the top than at the bottom ; so that, what 

 with their form and their own shrinking, they only need a 

 little shaking and out they fall. In the same way are made 

 these candles of stearin and of paraffme. It is a curious 

 thing to see how wax candles are made. A lot of cottons are 

 hung upon frames, as you see here, and covered with metal 



A little borax or phosphorus salt is sometimes added in order to mafct 

 the ash fusible. 



