COAL. 113 



cognized. Wax is bleached by melting it in a vessel by steam, and 

 running it off into a vessel placed over water and perforated with 

 holes, and then exposing it to the air a week or two. It is melted 

 again, and a cylinder in the water tank into which it falls, beneath 

 the surface, draws it into ribbons. It is then refined by melting it in 

 water acidulated with sulphuric acid. Spermaceti is added in candles, 

 to improve the color. It is composed of cerine, which forms 70 per 

 cent., and Myricine. Wax is used, melted with soap, yolk of eggs, or 

 mucilage, for diarrhea and dysentery ; but generally externally, as a 

 protective application, and as a constituent of most cerates. The vapor 

 from wax placed on hot iron is inhaled for phthisis. 628,303 Ibs. of 

 wax were made in the U. S. in 1840, of which the value of $59,685 

 was exported. 



COAL. This, too is a vegetable substance, the product of prime- 

 val vegetation and one of the most important articles with which 

 vegetable nature has enriched the earth and blessed mankind. But, 

 as we propose to continue our treatise on living vegetable existences, 

 our consideration of dead vegetable matter will be brief. The vege- 

 table remains in connection with our subject, and viewed as consti- 

 tuting that highly important substance coal, can scarcely be deemed 

 less important to man than the world of vegetable existences we have 

 considered. 



The comparatively prodigious exuberance of vegetable nature, 

 during the early condition of our planet, the entombment of innumer- 

 able and magnificent plants and the formation of these into immense 

 beds of coal, are one of the most interesting subjects of inquiry which 

 can be presented to the mind of the student of nature. The wonder- 

 ful changes to which the earth has been subjected and the astonishing 

 transformation of the infinite series of vegetable productions for in- 

 appreciable time into vast masses of carboniferous deposits beneath 

 the present surface of the earth, are boldly presented to the mind and 

 they call up a thousand startling propositions and associations. Our 

 limits however will not allow us to go into a discussion of this fruitful 

 subject nor to enter upon an analysis of the causes which have pro- 

 duced these important results. Brief statements of some of the par- 

 ticulars connected with these events are sufficient for our present pur- 

 pose; and these may lead, as desired, to more satisfactory investi- 

 gations of the phenomena. 



It will appear plain that the deposit of the extensive and luxuri- 

 ant vegetation which crowned the earth for millions of years, must 

 have produced a vast accumulation of matter and formed strata that, 

 when disclosed at far distant periods, must have undergone remarkable 

 changes in their nature and appearance. Such we find to be the case 

 with the masses of bituminous and anthracite coal from time to time 

 revealed and disengaged from their subterranean beds in this country. 

 10* 



