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. +Honey+ is a well known, sweet, tenacious, substance, which in fine weather is continually secreting in the nectaries of flowers, chiefly from certain vesicles or glands situated near the basis of every petal, from whence it is collected by bees and other insects. The domestic honey-bees consume a portion of this honey for food, at or near the time of gathering; but the principal part is regurgitated and poured into the cells of the hive, for the use of the community in winter:--so very abundant are these collections, in favourable seasons, as to afford to the apiarian an extensive share of them, without distressing the provident hoarders. Mr. Wildman states that in the year 1789, he purchased a glass filled with exceedingly fine honey-combs, weighing 63lbs., which had been collected within a month, and that the hive which it had surmounted still contained a full supply for the winter's consumption of the bees. This however was an unusual quantity; a hive or box, of the dimensions recommended in this work, may be considered as well stocked when it yields from 30 to 40lbs. of honey.