dle, which comes from the purified oil
of the spermaceti whale. Here, also, are yellow beeswax and refined
beeswax 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, a sort of wax which a kind friend has sent me, and which
forms a new material for the manufacture of candles.

Now, as to the light of the candle. We will light one or two, and set
them at work in the performance of their proper function. You observe a
candle is a very different thing from a lamp. With a lamp you take a
little oil, fill your vessel, put in a little moss, or some cotton
prepared by artificial means, and then light the top of the wick. When
the flame runs down the cotton to the oil, it gets stopped, but it goes
on burning in the part above. Now, I have no doubt you will ask, how is
it that the oil, which will not burn of itself, gets up to the top of
the cotton, where it will burn? We shall presently examine that; but
there is a much more wonderful thing about the burning of a candle than
this. You have here a solid substance with no vessel to contain it; and
how is it that this solid substance can get up to the place where the
flame is? Or, when it is made a fluid, then how is it that it keeps
together? This is a wonderful thing about a candle.

You see, then, in the first instance, that a beautiful cup is formed. As
the air comes to the candle, it moves upwards by the force of the
current which the heat of the candle produces, and it so cools all the
sides of the wax, tallow, or fuel as to keep the edge much cooler than
the part within; the part within melts by the flame that runs down the
wick as far as it can go before it is stopped, but the part on the
outside does not melt. If I made a current in one direction, my cup
would be lopsided, and the fluid would consequently run over--for the
same force of gravity which holds worlds together, holds this fluid in a
horizontal position. You see, therefore, that the cup is formed by this
beautifully regular ascending current of air playing upon all sides,
which keeps the exterior of the candle cool. No fuel would serve for a
candle which has not the property of giving this cup, except such fuel
as the Irish bogwood, where the material itself is like a sponge, and
holds its own fuel.

You see now why you have such a bad result if you burn