ade. 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
of the means best fitted to produce the required result, how things turn
up which one would not expect beforehand. Candles cannot always be cast. A
wax candle can never be cast. It is made by a particular process, which I
can illustrate in a minute or two: but I must not spend much time on it.
Wax is a thing which, burning so well, and melting so easily in a candle,
cannot be cast. However, let us take a material that can be cast. Here is
a frame, with a number of moulds fastened in it. The first thing to be
done is to put a wick through them. Here is one--a plaited wick, which
does not require snuffing[3]--supported by a little wire. It goes to the
bottom, where it is pegged in--the little peg holding the cotton tight,
and stopping the aperture, so that nothing fluid shall run out. At the
upper part there is a little bar placed across, which stretches the cotton
and holds it in the mould. The tallow is then melted, and the moulds are
filled. After a certain time, when the moulds are cool, the excess of
tallow is poured off at one corner, and then cleaned off altogether, and
the ends of the wick cut away. The candles alone then remain in the mould,
and you have only to upset them, as I am doing, when out they tumble, for
the candles are made in the form of cones, being narrower at the top than
at the bottom; so that what with their form and their own shrinking, they
only need a little shaking, and out they fall. In the same way are made
these candles of stearin and of paraffin. It is a curious thing to see how
wax candles are made. A lot of cottons are hung upon frames, as you see
here, and covered with metal tags at the ends to keep the wax from
covering the cotton in those places. These are carried to a heater, where
the wax is melted. As you see, the frames can turn round; and as they
turn, a man takes a vessel of wax and pours it first down one, and then
the next and the next, and so on. When he has gone once round, if it is
sufficiently cool, he gives the first a second coat, and so on until they
are all of the required thickness. When they have been thus clothed, or
fed, or made up to that thickness, they are taken off, and placed
elsewhere. I have her