some one who entrusted him with his knowledge, converted into that
beautiful substance, stearin, which you see lying beside it. A candle, you
know, is not now a greasy thing like an ordinary tallow candle, but a
clean thing, and you may almost scrape off and pulverise the drops which
fall from it without soiling anything. This is the process he
adopted[2]:--The fat or tallow is first boiled with quick-lime, and made
into a soap, and then the soap is decomposed by sulphuric acid, which
takes away the lime, and leaves the fat re-arranged as stearic acid,
whilst a quantity of glycerin is produced at the same time.
Glycerin--absolutely a sugar, or a substance similar to sugar--comes out
of the tallow in this chemical change. The oil is then pressed out of it;
and you see here this series of pressed cakes, shewing how beautifully the
impurities are carried out by the oily part as the pressure goes on
increasing, and at last you have left that substance which is melted, and
cast into candles as here represented. The candle I have in my hand is a
stearin candle, made of stearin from tallow in the way I have told you.
Then here is a sperm candle, which comes from the purified oil of the
spermaceti whale. Here also are yellow bees-wax and refined bees-wax, from
which candles are made. Here, too, is that curious substance called
paraffin, and some paraffin candles made of paraffin obtained from the
bogs of Ireland. I have here also a substance brought from Japan, since we
have forced an entrance into that out-of-the-way place--a sort of wax
which a kind friend has sent me, and which forms a new material for the
manufacture of candles.

And how are these candles made? I have told you about dips, and I will
shew you how moulds are made. Let us imagine any of these candles to be
made of materials which can be cast. "Cast!" you say. "Why, a candle is a
thing that melts; and surely if you can melt it, you can cast it." Not so.
It is wonderful, in the progress of manufacture, and in the consideration