242 WAX PRODUCED FROM VEGETABLES. 



Virginian myrtle, that this has received the name of Candle- 

 berry. In the parts of the country where this tree abounds, it is 

 quite worth-while to collect the berries, for the wax they yield ; 

 which, when made into candles, burns with peculiar brightness 

 and freedom from smoke, at the same time giving off a fragrant 

 odour. Another wax-bearing tree exists in South Africa ; and 

 the substance yielded by its berries, which is made into candles 

 by the Dutch, is greedily eaten by the Hottentots. In South 

 America there is a kind of palm, the leaves of which have their 

 surface covered with minute scales of wax, which separate when 

 they are dried in the shade ; and of this wax, mixed with a small 

 proportion of tallow to avoid brittleness, excellent candles may 

 be made. The leaves are so little permeable to moisture, that 

 they may be used as coverings for houses ; and they have been 

 known to sustain the vicissitudes of weather for twenty years 

 in such situations, without requiring to be renewed. The pith 

 and the fruit of this palm also furnish a nutritious food for man 

 and cattle ; and the wood is useful in building houses, making 

 fences, &c. ; so that it is a very important tree, in the district in 

 which it abounds. Another species of Wax Palm is found in the 

 more elevated parts of South America ; growing on the moun- 

 tain ranges to the prodigious height of a hundred and sixty feet. 

 The wax here exists in the form of a kind of varnish, covering 

 the trunk. 



382. A substance nearly resembling Tallow is yielded by a 

 tree named the Croton sebiferum, which grows abundantly in 

 China, and is described as being the largest, the most useful, and 

 the most widely diffused, of any of the plants of that country. 

 It imitates the oak, in the height of the stem, and the spread of 

 its branches. The seed-vessels are hard brownish husks, not 

 unlike those of chestnuts ; and each of them contains three round 

 white kernels, about the size and shape of hazel-nuts, having 

 small stones in their interior, around which the fatty matter 

 lies. From the kernel of the stone, an oil fit for burning in the 

 lamps may be pressed. Almost all the candles burnt in the 

 southern provinces of China, are made from this vegetable 

 tallow, there being very few sheep in that part of the country ; 



