ON THE MANUFACTURE OP COMPOSITE CANDLES AT CLICHY. 485 



The tablets of stearic and margaric acids, freed by the hot pressure of 

 the greater part of the oleic acid, are afterwards employed in making 

 candles. The first kinds for commerce are made thus : — At Clichy the 

 loaves undergo a second hot pressure, and they then obtain the stearic 

 acid almost pure, of a beautiful white, translucent colour, and deprived of 

 odour, of a pretty good resistance to fusion, presenting, in fact, all the 

 qualities which in commerce have given it the name of extra-double. In 

 coming out of the presses, the stearic acid is purified by Several washings 

 in water, at first acidulated, to purge from all foreign matter, and par- 

 ticularly from the oxide of iron by oxalic acid, to take away every trace 

 of lime, then clarified a Valbumine. Thus purified, it crystallises with 

 an excessive rapidity, which would present a great difficulty in the 

 making of the candle if it were not remedied. Formerly, they added 

 in the eoppers a small quantity of arsenic acid, which prevented, it is 

 true, the crystallisation, but was entirely injurious to the consumer. In 

 a great many stearine manufactories they employ the old candle-moulds, 

 slightly warmed, before pouring in the liquid stearic acid. At Clichy 

 they make use of apparatus by means of which they can easily make 

 40,000 candles per day. This apparatus has the advantage of being 

 heated and cooled at will, of being worked by women and children, 

 and owes its rapidity of execution to the clever mechanism which 

 supplies it with a series of wicks without end. In coining out of 

 the mould, the candles are exposed to the air on frames of lattice-work ; 

 there they undergo the discolouring influence of light, and become of 

 an absolute whiteness. After forty-eight or sixty hours of exposure, 

 according to the season, they bring them to the cutting machines. An 

 endless chain, composed of parallel staffs, receives each candle at the 

 moment in which, escaping from the notches of the cylinder, it is cut 

 by a circular saw, warmed by friction against two corks, which press it 

 lightly. During their passage on the endless chain, a brush, animated 

 by a to-and-fro movement, washes and rubs the candles, on which fall 

 some drops of water charged with carbonate of soda ; from thence they 

 pass over the polisher, a machine in which the brushes are replaced by 

 plugs of flannel, which gently polish the cylindrical surface, and give it 

 an agreeable brightness. The candles are then finished ; but their fate 

 varies according to their degree of perfection. Those which contain any 

 defect whatever are broken and again melted down; those which satisfy 

 in every way the experienced eye of the persons charged with the 

 examination of them, are recognised by the house and judged worthy of 

 bearing its mark. By means of a little apparatus in silver, maintained 

 at a heat of about 212° F., they impress the word " Clichy," and the 

 candle goes to the packing-room with its fellows, or, if it present an un- 

 usual degree of perfection, it is judged worthy of being decorated. The 

 idea of decorating the candle by ornamenting it with paintings, es- 

 cutcheons, and figures, is an elegant and graceful invention, that the 

 proprietor of the manufactory, M. Casinberche, has developed with the 



