A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines / containing a clear exposition of their principles and practice

by Andrew Ure

Mineral waters may, in most cases, be artificially prepared, by the skilful application of the knowledge derived from analysis, with such precision as to imitate very closely the native springs. When the various earthy or metallic constituents, are held in solution by carbonic acid, or sulphuretted, they should be placed along with their due proportions of water, in the receiver of the aerating machine (see [Soda Water]), and then the proper quantity of gas should be injected into the water. Sufficient agitation will be given by the action of the forcing-pump to promote their solution.

WAX (Cire, Fr.; Wachs, Germ.); is the substance which forms the cells of bees. It was long supposed to be derived from the pollen of plants, swallowed by these insects, and merely voided under this new form; but it has been proved by the experiments, first of Mr. Hunter, and more especially of M. Huber, to be the peculiar secretion of a certain organ, which forms a part of the small sacs, situated on the sides of the median line of the abdomen of the bee. On raising the lower segments of the abdomen, these sacs may be observed, as also scales or spangles of wax, arranged in pairs upon each segment. There are none, however, under the rings of the males and the queen. Each individual has only eight wax sacs, or pouches; for the first and the last ring are not provided with them. M. Huber satisfied himself by precise experiments that bees, though fed with honey, or sugar alone, produced nevertheless a very considerable quantity of wax; thus proving that they were not mere collectors of this substance from the vegetable kingdom. The pollen of plants serves for the nourishment of the larvæ.

But wax exists also as a vegetable product, and may, in this point of view, be regarded as a concrete fixed oil. It forms a part of the green fecula of many plants, particularly of the cabbage; it may be extracted from the pollen of most flowers; as also from the skins of plums, and many stone fruits. It constitutes a varnish upon the upper surface of the leaves of many trees, and it has been observed in the juice of the cow-tree. The berries of the Myrica angustifolia, latifolia, as well as the cerifera, afford abundance of wax.

Bees’ wax, as obtained by washing and melting the comb, is yellow. It has a peculiar smell, resembling honey, and derived from it, for the cells in which no honey has been deposited, yield a scentless white wax. Wax is freed from its impurities, and bleached, by melting it with hot water or steam, in a tinned copper or wooden vessel, letting it settle, running off the clear supernatant oily-looking liquid into an oblong trough with a line of holes in its bottom, so as to distribute it upon horizontal wooden cylinders, made to revolve half immersed in cold water, and then exposing the thin ribbons or films thus obtained to the blanching action of air, light, and moisture. For this purpose, the ribbons are laid upon long webs of canvas stretched horizontally between standards, two feet above the surface of a sheltered field, having a free exposure to the sunbeams. Here they are frequently turned over, then covered by nets to prevent their being blown away by winds, and watered from time to time, like linen upon the grass field in the old method of bleaching. Whenever the colour of the wax seems stationary, it is collected, remelted, and thrown again into ribbons upon the wet cylinder, in order to expose new surfaces to the blanching operation. By several repetitions of these processes, if the weather proves favourable, the wax eventually loses its yellow tint entirely, and becomes fit for forming white candles. If it be finished under rain, it will become gray on keeping, and also lose in weight.

In France, where the purification of wax is a considerable object of manufacture, about four ounces of cream of tartar, or alum, are added to the water in the first melting-copper, and the solution is incorporated with the wax by diligent manipulation. The whole is left at rest for some time, and then the supernatant wax is run off into a settling cistern, whence it is discharged by a stopcock or tap, over the wooden cylinder revolving at the surface of a large water-cistern, kept cool by passing a stream continually through it.

The bleached wax is finally melted, strained through silk sieves, and then run into circular cavities in a moistened table, to be cast or moulded into thin disc pieces, weighing from two to three ounces each, and three or four inches in diameter.

Neither chlorine, nor even the chlorides of lime and alkalis, can be employed with any advantage to bleach wax, because they render it brittle, and impair its burning quality.

Wax purified, as above, is white and translucent in thin segments; it has neither taste nor smell; it has a specific gravity of from 0·960 to 0·966; it does not liquefy till it be heated to 154¹⁄₂° F.; but it softens at 86°, becoming so plastic, that it may be moulded by the hand into any form. At 32° it is hard and brittle.

It is not a simple substance, but consists of two species of wax, which may be easily separated by boiling alcohol. The resulting solution deposits, on cooling, the waxy body called [cerine]. The undissolved wax, being once and again treated with boiling alcohol, finally affords from 70 to 90 per cent. of its weight of cerine. The insoluble residuum is the [myricine] of Dr. John, so called because it exists in a much larger proportion in the wax of the Myrica cerifera. It is greatly denser than wax, being of the same specific gravity as water; and may be distilled without decomposition, which cerine undergoes. See these two articles.