Bees-wax forms _a considerable article of commerce_, and large quantities of it are annually imported into this country from the Baltic, the Levant, the Barbary Coast, and North America. In some parts of Europe and America wax is very extensively employed in the religious ceremonies of the inhabitants. Humboldt informs us that upwards of 80,000 pounds worth is annually imported from Cuba to New Spain, and that the total export from that island in 1803 was worth upwards of 130,000_l._ By far the greater part of this wax is the produce of the hive-bee, though no inconsiderable quantity is procured also from various species of wild bees, as well as from certain trees which I shall notice presently. Upon this subject a modern writer, after lamenting the increasing neglect of bee-culture in this country, has not hesitated to use the following contemptuous, though somewhat extravagant, language. "There is hardly bees-wax enough produced in England to answer the demand for lip-salve alone; but importation from America supplies all our wants, for the quantity obtained in that country is annually increasing." "Little thinks the ball-room beauty, when the tapers are almost burnt out, that the wax by whose light her charms have been exalted was once hidden in the bells and cups of innumerable flowers, shedding perfume over the silent valleys of the Susquehanna, or nodding at their own reflected colours in the waters of the Potomac and Delaware." The uses of wax in making candles, ointments, &c. are well known. According to Buffon, the bees-wax of tropical climates is too soft for any but medicinal purposes. There is a species of _wax_, which is generally regarded as _of vegetable origin_, and which is afforded by various trees, plants and fruits. The light down which silvers over the surface of prunes and other stone fruits, has been shown by M. Proust to be wax, the leaves and stem of the _Ceroxylon_ also, afford it in considerable quantity, if bruised and boiled in water; but the trees which afford it in greatest abundance, are the _Myrica cerifera angustifolia_ or wax-tree of Louisiana, and the _Myrica cerifera latifolia_ of Pennsylvania, Carolina, and Virginia. The latter is now naturalized in France: it flourishes also in the dry lands of Prussia, and, from the productiveness of its berries, it seems surprising that its culture is not more general. The mode in which this _myrtle wax_ is obtained is as follows. Towards the end of autumn the natives gather the ripe berries, boil them in water, skim off the wax which rises, strain it off from its impurities, and set it to drain, after which, they remelt and form it into masses. Four pounds of berries yield about one pound of wax.