Wax, an organic product of animal and vegetable origin, and occurring also as a mineral, though of organic origin. The term was originally restricted to beeswax; but there are many kinds of wax, only a few of which have been accurately investigated. They are composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, carbon and hydrogen being greatly in excess. They are more or less hard at ordinary temperatures, melt below 212°, are insoluble in water, sparingly soluble or insoluble in alcohol, and soluble in ether, volatile and fixed oils, bisulphide of carbon, and chloroform. They burn with a brilliant flame in the air, and are not easily saponified by boiling with solution of potash, but readily form soap by fusion with solid potash. - The only animal waxes known to be such are common beeswax and Andaquies wax, produced by a bee found near the Orinoco and Amazon rivers, though Chinese wax, noticed further on, is by some supposed to be the product of an insect. Beeswax, ordinary wax, or cera, is the substance with which bees build their cells. It was formerly thought that these insects extracted it ready formed from plants; but the careful observations of Huber showed that when bees are fed upon pure sugar alone they will continue to secrete wax.

Beeswax at ordinary temperatures is solid, tough, yellow, and has a peculiar odor and greasy feel. If pared in thin scales and exposed to the air in sunshine, it becomes bleached. It may also be bleached by the action of nitric acid, as well as by chlorine, which however combines with the wax, forming a substitution product which, being decomposed on burning, yields vapors of hydrochloric acid. According to Lewy, beeswax is composed of 80.2 per cent, of carbon, 13.4 of hydrogen, and 6.4 of oxygen. It is a mixture of three different substances: 1, myricine, insoluble in boiling alcohol and consisting principally of myricic palmitate; 2, cerotic acid, formerly called cerine, soluble in boiling alcohol, which crystallizes out on cooling; 3, ceroleine, which remains dissolved in cold alcohol. Beeswax, as usually seen in cakes, is obtained by melting the combs in boiling water, running off the wax, remelting with hot water or steam, and allowing it to flow upon horizontal wooden cylinders, which revolve half immersed in cold water. This forms thin ribbons, which are bleached by the air, light, and moisture, by exposure upon canvas stretched horizontally. When the bleaching process seems stationary, the wax is remelted, and the process is repeated until it becomes white.

It is finally melted, strained through silk sieves, and cast in moulds. Beeswax is sometimes adulterated with starch, but the fraud may be detected by oil of turpentine, which dissolves the wax but not the starch. Mutton suet, a more frequent adulterant, may be detected by dry distillation, which causes in tallow the production of sebacic acid, a body which produces precipitation in a solution of acetate of lead. It is said that an adulteration of only 2 per cent, may be detected in this way. Stearine, also sometimes introduced, may be detected, according to Lebel, when forming less than 5 per cent., by dissolving the specimen in two parts of oil and adding acetate of lead, which produces a solid precipitate. - Chinese wax, or pela, also called vegetable spermaceti and vegetable insect wax, is generally supposed to be produced on certain trees by a puncture of a species of coccus; it covers the branches with a soft white coating about a line in thickness, which may be removed by boiling water. It consists chiefly of cerotate of ceryle, C54H108O2. It is crystalline, and brilliantly white like spermaceti, but more brittle and fibrous; it melts at 179° F. It is used in China for making candles, and also in medicine.

Cow-tree wax is obtained by evaporating the milk of the cow tree; it softens at 104° F., melts at 140°, and is insoluble in cold alcohol, but dissolves completely in boiling alcohol, and is saponified by alkalies. According to Berzelius, it resembles beeswax more than any other kind of wax. Cuba wax is yellowish brown, of unknown origin, imported from Cuba. It is softer than beeswax, and dissolves in warm ether and turpentine oil, and almost completely in boiling alcohol. It contains 76.5 per cent, of cerine, 10.5 of myricine, 2 of balsamic resin, and 3.5 of water. Japan wax, also called tree wax, is obtained in the East Indies from the root of rhus auccedanea. It is yellowish white and somewhat softer than beeswax; slightly soluble in absolute alcohol at ordinary temperatares, completely so at the boiling point, and soluble in ether and in volatile and fixed oils. It is said not to be a true wax, but a glyceride, being resolved by fusion with potassium hydrate into palmitic acid and glycerine. The palm wax of Colombia is obtained from the ceroxylon andicola. The scrapings from the exterior of the tree are boiled by the Indians, and the wax rises to the surface.

It is grayish white and crude, and after purification by digesting in alcohol is yellowish white; it fuses at about 162° F. The ocuba wax of Brazil is derived from the kernels of the fruit of several species of myristica, especially the M. ocuba. It melts at 98° F. The myrtle wax, which for many years has been an article of commerce in the United States, also known as "candleberry wax" and "bayberry tallow," occurs as an incrustation on the berries of the wax myrtle or bayberry, myrica cerifera. The berries are enclosed in bags of coarse cloth, and boiled in water, the wax collecting on the surface being drawn off and cast in moulds. It varies in color from grayish yellow to deep green, has a balsamic and slightly aromatic odor, a specific gravity of 1.004 to 1.006, fuses between 117° and 120° F., and is much harder and more brittle than beeswax. It is composed, according to Mr. G. E. Moore, of 20 per cent, of a substance called palmitine, which exists in palm oil, and 80 per cent, of palmitic acid, with a small quantity of lauric acid. Its illuminating power is scarcely inferior to that of the best beeswax; it costs only about one fourth as much, and is easily bleached and cast in moulds.

The plant grows abundantly along the coast in New England and on Long Island. Plantations of it have long existed in Europe, and it has been cultivated in Algeria. - Several mineral substances resemble wax in physical properties and composition, the principal of which are ozocerite and hatchettine. Ozocerite was discovered by Meyer in a sandstone in Moldavia, in the vicinity of coal and rock salt. It also occurs at the Urpeth colliery, Newcastleupon-Tyne. It has a resinous waxy consistence and translucence, and sometimes a foliated structure. Its specific gravity is 0.94 to 0.97. According to Johnston, the Urpeth variety melts at 110° F. and boils at 250°. It distils without decomposition, and is not altered by strong acids. The Moldavia variety dissolves slightly in ether, but the Urpeth to the extent of four fifths. Hatchettine or mineral tallow occurs in the coal measures of Glamorganshire, Wales, in crystals and amorphous thin laminae having the consistence of spermaceti; specific gravity, 0.916. It has a greasy feel, melts at 133° F., and distils without change when cautiously heated. It is composed, according to Johnston, of 85.6 per cent, of carbon and 14-4 per cent, of hydrogen.

Similar mineral waxes are also found in Moravia, and at Loch Fyne, near Inverness, Scotland.