LEONARDO OR LUCAS? 



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1 700 A.D. in connection with medicine and the toilet, but 

 was not consumed by the thousand tons a year, as it was 

 after the hunting of the sperm whale or cachalot {Physeter 

 mecrocephalus) had been set a-going by the brave fisher- 

 men of Nantucket and the Northern Atlantic coast of 

 America in 1690. In 1730 or thereabouts the English 

 and the Dutch also sent out ships to take part in this 

 perilous industry, which is now again, in its dwindled con- 

 dition, exclusively American. It is the pursuit of by far 

 the biggest and fiercest animal which man has doomed to 

 extinction. Those who enjoy such stories of adventure 

 should read Mr. Bullen's personal narrative, ' The Cruise 

 of the Cachalot.' It was at the end of the eighteenth 

 century that spermaceti became so abundant in the market 

 that candles of it were manufactured and sold cheaper 

 than those of wax. From about i860 it was superseded 

 by paraffin and other wax-like products ; and it was at its 

 cheapest period, and when it was most widely in use, that 

 Lucas, the English artist, who made many wax busts and 

 statuettes, is known to have mixed it, in the form of " old 

 candles," with beeswax, in order to form the composition 

 which he used in his works. The evidence given by the 

 chemist. Dr. Pinkus, appears to me to be conclusive 

 (even without the evidence of the old clothes stuffed into 

 the hollow of the bust) against the theory that the Bode 

 wax-bust of Flora is more ancient than the nineteenth 

 century, and much in favour of its being the work of 

 Lucas, who is exceptionally known as a wax-modeller 

 of repute sixty years ago, who did use spermaceti. 



Spermaceti is a perfectly definite chemical body, which 

 can be recognised without chance of error. It is a com- 

 bination of palmitic acid and a peculiar hydrocarbon, 

 called (after the whale) " cetyl," and easily forms pure 

 crystals. Before sperm whales were hunted it was obtained 

 in relatively small quantity from individual sperm whales, 



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