OBSERVATIONS.
Bees-Wax, like all other oily matters in a concrete form, is an Oil thickened by an Acid. Its decomposition furnishes us with a very convincing proof of this truth; which, you see, is confirmed more and more, by every new analysis we make of such substances.
Wax doth not part with all its Acid in the first distillation: and this is the reason that it doth not then become a fluid Oil, but a butter, which hath only a degree of softness proportioned to the quantity of Acid separated from it. The same thing holds with regard to its butter; which losing, by a second distillation, a great part of the remaining Acid which caused its consistence, is by that means turned to an Oil. Lastly, this Oil, from being thick, becomes very fluid by a third distillation, and so follows the general rule of Oils; which always become the more fluid the oftener they are distilled or rectified.
What is here said concerning Wax is applicable to Resins, also; which it further resembles in its consistence, and its refusing to dissolve in water: yet it differs from them essentially in several respects; and for this reason we thought proper to treat of it in particular. The properties in which it differs from Resins are these:
First, It hath no aromatic scent, nor acrid taste, as Resins have.
Secondly, It doth not yield a thin limpid Oil, in the first distillation, as they do.
Thirdly, Its Oil, or its butter, doth not grow sensibly thicker with age. Mr. Boerhaave kept some butter of Bees-Wax for twenty years, in a vessel that was not stopt, but only covered with a bit of paper; yet it did not grow hard. An Essential Oil, though kept much closer shut up, would in much less time have acquired the consistence of a Balsam; and a Balsam, in that time, would have become a Resin.
Fourthly, Bees-Wax is not soluble in Spirit of Wine; whereas it is the very nature of Resins to dissolve in that menstruum.
Fifthly, I have observed that Spirit of Wine acts faintly on the butter of Bees-Wax; dissolves that butter when distilled to an Oil; unites more readily with that Oil when rectified by a third distillation; and dissolves it still the more readily the oftener it is distilled. Resins, on the contrary, are more soluble in Spirit of Wine than the thin Oils drawn from them; and those Oils acquire the property of resisting that menstruum more and more obstinately the oftener they are rectified.
By these differences we may judge whether it be proper to confound Bees-Wax with Resins, or whether it ought not rather to be considered as an oily compound of a singular species, which deserves to be ranked in a different class, or at least in some other division.