From the wax thus procured, they make soap and candles. The soap manufactured from it is said to be excellent, and to wash linen perfectly white; the candles afford a good light, without smoke or guttering; their perfume is highly agreeable, not only during the time that they are burning, but for a considerable time afterwards.
Mr. Sparrman suspects that myrtle wax is deposited upon the berries by insects, and Du Valde has given an account of a white wax made by small insects, round the branches of a tree in China, in great quantity, which is there collected for medical and economical purposes. (Description of China, vol. i. page 230.) Myrtle wax therefore may not be a vegetable product.
According to the experiments of M. Cadet and Dr. Bostock, this myrtle wax differs in some respects from, bees-wax. It differs from it in colour, different specimens of it assuming different shades of yellowish green: its smell is also different; myrtle wax, when fresh, emitting a fragrant balsamic odour. It has in part the tenacity without the unctuosity of bees-wax, and somewhat of the brittleness of resin. Its specific gravity is greater, insomuch that it sinks in water, whereas bees-wax floats upon it; and it is not so easily bleached to form white wax.
Analysis of Wax.
| Carbon | 81,79 |
| Oxygen | 5,54 |
| Hydrogen | 12,67 |
“The formation of resin and wax has been explained thus:—That when a volatile or a fixed oil is expelled out of plants, and has its surface exposed to the air, the first becomes a resin by losing hydrogen, the second a wax by absorbing oxygen.”—Parkes’s Chemical Catechism, p. 244, 11th edit.
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
HONEY.