SEALING-WAX

( Cire à cacheter , Fr.; Siegellack , Germ.) The Hindus from time immemorial have po e ed the resin lac, and were long accustomed to use it for sealing manuscripts before it was known in Europe. It was first imported from the East into Venice, and then into Spain; in which country sealing-wax became the object of a considerable commerce, under the name of Spanish wax. If shellac be compounded into sealing-wax, immediately after it has been separated by fusion from the palest qualities of stick or seed lac, it then forms a better and le brittle article, than when the shellac is fused a second time. Hence sealing-wax, rightly prepared in the East Indies, deserves a preference over what can be made in other countries, where the lac is not indigenous. Shellac can be restored in some degree, however, to a plastic and tenacious state by melting it with a very small portion of turpentine. The palest shellac is to be selected for bright-coloured sealing-wax, the dark kind being reserved for black. The following prescription may be followed for making red sealing-wax:—Take 4 ounces of shellac, 1 ounce of Venice turpentine (some say 1 1 ⁄ 2 ounces), and 3 ounces of vermillion. Melt the lac in a copper pan suspended over a clear charcoal fire, then pour the turpentine slowly into it, and soon afterwards add the vermillion, stirring briskly all the time of the mixture with a rod in either hand. In forming the round sticks of sealing-wax, a certain portion of the ma should be weighed while it is ductile, divided into the desired number of pieces, and then rolled out upon a warm marble slab, by means of a smooth wooden block, like that used by apothecaries for rolling a ma of pills. The oval sticks of sealing-wax are cast in moulds, with the above compound in a state of fusion. The marks of the lines of junction of the mould-box may be afterwards removed by holding the sticks over a clear fire, or pa ing them over a blue gas-flame. Marbled sealing-wax is made by mixing two, three, or more coloured kinds of it, while they are in a semi-fluid state. From the viscidity of the several ma es, their incorporation is left incomplete, so as to produce the appearance of marbling. Gold sealing-wax is made simply by stirring gold-coloured mica spangles into the melted resins. Wax may be scented by introducing a little e ential oil, e ence of musk, or other perfume. If 1 part of balsam of Peru be melted along with 99 parts of the sealing-wax composition, an agreeable fragrance will be exhaled in the act of sealing with it. Either lamp black or ivory black serves for the colouring-matter of black wax. Sealing-wax is often adulterated with rosin; in which case it runs into thin drops at the flame of a candle.