WAX. Syn. Beeswax, Yellow w.; Cera (Ph. L.), Cera flava (B. P., Ph. E. & D.), L. The substance which forms the cells of bees; obtained by melting the comb in water, after the honey has been removed, straining the liquid mass, remelting the defecated portion, and casting it into cakes.
Pure beeswax has a pleasant ceraceous odour, a pale yellowish-brown colour, and the sp. gr. ·960 to ·965. It is brittle at 32°, softens and becomes plastic at 88 or 90°, and melts at 154 to 155° Fahr. “It becomes kneadable at about 85°, and its behaviour while worked between finger and thumb is characteristic. A piece the size of a pea being worked in the hand till tough with the warmth, then placed upon the thumb, and forcibly stroked down with the forefinger, curls up, following the finger, and is marked by it with longitudinal streaks.” (B. S. Proctor.) It is very frequently adulterated with farina, resin, and mutton suet or stearin. Dr Normandy met with a sample containing 23% of effloresced sulphate of soda. The first may be detected by oil of turpentine, which dissolves only the wax,—the
second, by its solubility in cold alcohol, and by its terebinthinate taste,—the third and fourth, even when forming less than 2% of the wax, may be detected by it affording sebacic acid on distillation. When greasy matter is present in any considerable quantity, it may also be detected by the suspected sample having an unctuous feel and a disagreeable taste. A spurious beeswax met with in the American markets, is described in ‘New Remedies’ for 1877, and is said to have been a very clever imitation externally of the genuine substance, which it closely resembled in appearance, colour, fracture, bitterness, pliability, and odour. Upon analysis it was found to be composed of 60 parts of paraffin and 40 parts of yellow resin covered with a thin coating of true beeswax. The specific quantity of the counterfeit article was identical with that of many samples of genuine beeswax. Saline matter may be detected by the loss of weight, when a weighed quantity of the wax is boiled in water. Heavy substances, as chalk, plaster of Paris, white lead, oxide of zinc, &c., may also be thus separated, since they subside, owing to their superior gravity, to the bottom of the vessel. The rough mealy fracture of pure wax is rendered finer grained, smoother, and duller, by the addition of lard or spermaceti, and becomes sparkling and more granular by the addition of resin. (Proctor.)
[Note: ‘Chem. Central,’, 1872, No. 29.]
[Transcriber’s Note: The publisher omitted the corresponding tag in the text.]
Wax, Bleached. See Wax, White (below).
Wax, Carnauba.[265] The leaves of the Carnauba tree (Copernicia cerifera), a South American palm, have lately become a very important source for the supply of large quantities of vegetable wax. Carnauba wax is extensively used in the manufacture of candles. Mr Consul Morgan, in a paper laid before Parliament in 1876, on the trade and commerce of Brazil, states “that the exportation of this wax is calculated at 871,400 kilos; exceeding in value reis 1,500,000, or £162,500.”
[265] ‘Ph. Journal,’ vol. vi, 3rd series, p. 745.
Wax, Etching. See Etching Ground and Varnish.
Wax, Facti′′tious. Syn. Cera flava factitia, L. A spurious compound, sold by the farriers’ druggists for veterinary purposes.