Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations.

  • Pehr Kalm
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kalm's account of his visit to England : on his way to America in 1748 / translated by Joseph Lucas ; with two maps and several illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    136/520 page 112
    AMERICAN NOTES Made in London. [T. I. p. 384.] Vax af et slags Porss. Wax from a kind of sweet willow. In many places where there are morasses or wet grounds in North America there grovvs in abundance a little bush, which is called by Botanists Myrica foliis lanceolatis subserratis, fruclu baccato. Linn. Hort. Cliff. 455. Upsala 295. This Myrica or sweet willow, Pors, instead of other fruit has berries which have on the outside a kind of a wax, which is used as a candle, til ljus. They take the berries and cast them into a pot of boiling water, when the wax melts off the berries by itself and floats as a grease on the top of the water. When the water is cold, the wax härdens, and can tlien be taken off and kept till it is wanted. The candle is made from it in the same way as tallow or ordinary wax. They mostly mix this wax with the tallow they are going to make dip candles of, as it makes the tallow candle harder and firmer; for if the summers in Virginia are very warm tlien the tallow candle becomes so soft and weak from the great heat that it carnot stand straight but bends down ; but if some of this wax is melted together with the tallow they ncver bend with the summer heat. Some
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