WAXES. A class of substances of animal or vegetable origin containing mainly one or more esters (q.v.) composed of higher monatomic or diatomic alcohols and higher fatty acids. Waxes have a somewhat characteristic consistence, simi lar to that of their prototype, beeswax, although some (e.g. the so-called sperm oil) are liquid, and others (e.g. carnauba wax) are so hard that they can be readily pulverized in a mortar. The principal difference, chemically, between waxes and fats consists in the fact that the alcohol found combined in the latter is ordinary glycerin tri-atomic alcohol). The term waxes, how ever, as used commercially, is often extended to substances having a `waxy' consistence, but con taining no ester of a monatomic or diatomic alcohol at all. Thus the so-called 'Japan wax' is really a fat, almost entirely composed of gly cerin and palmitic acid; the so-called 'myrtle wax' consists of about 20 per cent. of tri-palmitin (i.e. the fat composed of glycerin and palmitic acid) and about SO per cent. of free palmitie acid. On the other hand, the term 'oil,' which is gen erally applied to the true liquid fats, is in coin mereial usage extended also to liquid waxes, like the sperm oil already mentioned. Free fatty acids (as well as free monatomic or diatomic alcohols and hydrocarbons) are found also, in limited quantities, in the true waxes. But if waxes are at all to be classed separately. from
the fats, the term waxes should not be applied to materials containing glycerides, and the term oils should not be applied to materials contain ing no glycerides and composed chiefly of the substances that characterize the true waxes. Of course, since the true waxes contain no gly cerin, the latter does not appear among their saponification products, nor acroleiu be pro duced during their combustion. (See FATS.) Another difference between waxes and fats be comes apparent when they are subjected to proc esses of saponification. Thus, while any fat may he more or less readily saponified by alkalies dissolved in water, waxes can hardly be thus saponified at all, so that it is necessary to use potash or soda dissolved in alcohol when it is required to effect the saponification of is true wax. The following paragraphs contain ac counts of the principal waxes known. They may be divided into liquid and solid waxes, the for mer including sperm Oil and bottlenose nil, both of animal origin. The solid waxes may be sub divided into those of animal and those of vege table origin. The former include spermaceti, beeswax, wool wax, and serum wax. The solid waxes of vegetable oripin include carnauba wax, Chinese wax, opium wax, palm wax, ocuba wax, getah wax, ocotilla wax, and cottonseed wax,