[Illustration: Fig. 65.] HISTORY. For more than twenty years the Germans have used impressed sheets of wax as a foundation for comb, as it was first made by Herr Mehring, in 1857. These sheets are four or five times as thick as the partition at the centre of natural comb, which is very thin, only 1-180 of an inch thick. This is pressed between metal plates so accurately formed that the wax receives rhomboidal impressions which are a _fac simile_ of the basal wall or partition between the opposite cells of natural comb. The thickness of this sheet is no objection, as it is found that the bees almost always thin it down to the natural thickness, and probably use the shavings to form the walls. AMERICAN FOUNDATION. Mr. Wagner secured a patent on foundation in 1861, but as the article was already in use in Germany, the patent was, as we understand, of no legal value, and certainly, as it did nothing to bring this desirable article into use, it had no virtual value. Mr. Wagner was also the first to suggest the idea of rollers. In Langstroth's work, edition of 1859, p. 373, occurs the following, in reference to printing or stamping combs: "Mr. Wagner suggests forming these outlines with a simple instrument somewhat like a wheel cake cutter. When a large number are to be made, a machine might easily be constructed which would stamp them with great rapidity." In 1866, the King Brothers, of New York, in accordance with the above suggestion, invented the first machine with rollers, the _product_ of which they tried but failed to get patented. These stamped rollers were less than two inches long. This machine was useless, and failed to bring foundation into general use.