SUGAR, MOLASSES, CONFECTIONS, AND HONEY. 821 



MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL WAX.* 



A French patent, granted to Pauvert, Moussay, and Chauvin, prescribes melting 

 together one part rosin and one-half part paraffin. An alternative process is to melt 

 rosin with one-third part soap or stearic acid and extract with potash. Copal or 

 vegetable wax can also be used. 



CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE OF BEESWAX.t 



Besides an old observation of Dujardin's, that wax solidifying on an object glass 

 under favorable circumstances shows under the microscope something of a crystal- 

 line structure, there seems to be no further notice of the subject in the literature of 

 beeswax. The phenomenon may be demonstrated by melting a cake of white wax 

 in a shallow porcelain dish three-fourths filled with water. When the wax is fully 

 molted, the dish is allowed to cool as slowly as possible. Any bubbles in the wax 

 are to be broken by approaching a piece of hot iron to them. Vibration must be 

 avoided during this cooling. At the moment of solidification several opaque points 

 form simultaneously and at almost equal distances apart. From these points crystal- 

 lization begins. The surface of the solid cake will show well-defined crystals resem- 

 bling in shape the cells of the honeycomb. 



CONSTITUTION OF BEESWAX. J 



Schalfeef alleges that cerotic acid made from beeswax, according to Brodie's direc- 

 tion, when fractionally precipitated by lead acetate gives different acids, to one of 

 which the formula C^H ta O 2 is applied. The author, on repeating Schalfeef's work, 

 obtained by fractional precipitation only one acid, the analysis of which gave results 

 agreeing well with the formula of cerotic acid, C^HwOj, but not with the formula 

 C3<HfigO 2 . The cerotic acid separated from a kilogram of yellow wax was a com- 

 pletely homogeneous substance. 



BLEACHING BEESWAX. 



Beeswax is most frequently bleached by simple exposure to the air. For this pur- 

 pose it is cut into thin laminae and exposed in an open place to the light and air. 

 The coloring matter thus undergoes a complete combustion ; the wax is completely 

 decolorized in a period of time varying from ten to thirty days. Without the light 

 the oxidation does not take place even in a current of ozonized air, but the presence 

 of oxygenated or ozonized air causes the light to act more rapidly. 



It is not, therefore, simply the ozone which effects the bleaching, as is generally 

 supposed, but this agent only becomes effective in the presence of the solar rays. 

 Even at a temperature of 60 ozone does not attack the coloring matter in darkness. 

 Even in a vacuum or in an atmosphere of an inert gas, viz, CO 2 , N, etc., the light will 

 decolorize a wax, but more slowly than in the open air. 



*Chem., Centralblatt 1876, 528. 



t R. Rottger, Jahresber. d. phys. Ver. z Frankfurt a. M., 1876-'77, 23 ; abs. Chem. 

 Centralblatt, 1878, 575. 



tE. Zatzeck, Monatsh. f. Chem., 3, 677; Chem. Centralblatt, 1882, 626, 

 Buisine, Bull. Soc. China., Oct. 20, 1890, 465. 



18803 Ro. 13 13 



