218 
MANUFACTURE   OF    WAX  CANDLES. 
discovered.  If  the  problem  proposed  by  the  Academy  of  Medicine, 
in  1851,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Capuron  prize,  has  not  received  a 
satisfactory  solution,  it  may  be  removed  from  competition. 
Such,  Mr.  Director,  are  the  questions  which  need  elucidation. 
The  demands  of  science  will  lead  you,  I  have  no  doubt,  to  propose 
other  questions,  either  before  or  after  those  which  have  been  indi- 
cated. I  am  satisfied  of  the  sagacity  of  the  Professors  in  this  mat- 
ter, and  accept  in  advance  the  programme  they  may  offer. 
Receive,  my  dear  colleague,  the  assurance  of  my  distinguished 
consideration  and  affectionate  regard,  Orfila. 
Jour,  de  Pharm.,  Feb.  1853. 
ON  THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  WAX  CANDLES. 
(From  the  Reports  of  Juries  of  the  Great  Exhibition.) 
Under  the  name  of  wax  are  included  substances  of  various 
origin,  and  of  very  different  composition.  The  wax  employed  in 
the  manufacture  of  candles  is  secreted  by  the  honey  bee,  which 
has  the  power  of  producing  this  substance  from  its  food  (sugar). 
At  one  time  it  was  thought  that  the  bee  collected  the  wax  ready 
formed  from  plants,  until  Liebig  advanced  the  contrary 
opinion,  which  w£s  subsequently  corroborated  by  the  experiments 
of  MM.  Dumas  and  Milne  Edwards. 
A  wax  known  as  Chinese  wax,  and  resembling  spermaceti  in 
appearance,  was  formerly  supposed  to  be  a  vegetable  wax ;  but 
the  researches  of  Sir  GeGrge  Staunton  and  M.  Stanislaus  Julien 
have  demonstrated  that  it  is  the  secretion  of  a  male  insect,  the 
Coccus  ceriferus,  which  deposits  it  on  the  tree  on  which  it  feeds, 
particularly  the  Rhus  succedaneum.  We  owe  to  M.  Brodie  a 
knowledge  of  the  true  chemical  composition  of  wax.  This 
chemist,  by  his  recent  elaborate  researches,  has  shown  that 
Chinese  wax  is  a  compound  of  a  peculiar  fatty  acid  (eerotie)  and 
the  oxide  of  an  alcohol  radical  (cerotyl^  and  is  consequently 
cerotate  of  oxide  of  cerotyl.  Ordinary  bees'-wax  he  finds  gene- 
rally to  contain  twenty-two  per  cent,  of  free  cerotic  acid,  which 
is  soluble  in  alcohol,  and,  with  potassa,  forms  readily  a  soap. 
The  residue,  which  is  nearly  insoluble  in  alcohol,  and  which  has 
been  usually  called  myricin,  he  has  shown  to  be  a  compound  of 
palmitic  acid  and  the  oxide  of  another  alcohol  radical  (nielissyl,) 
