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Seal′ing-wax.

A composition for securing letters and packets.

Bitumen from Asia was used among the Egyptians and Romans. Pipe-clay, or a cement of pitch, wax, plaster, and fat, was also used.

Sealing-waxes made of resin, and colored with vermilion, lampblack, white-lead, or orpiment, were made in Europe in the sixteenth century. The art seems to have been derived by the Portuguese from India, and to have reached the rest of Europe through Spain. It was long known as Spanish wax.

Sealing-wax has a resin for its basis, and has no wax in its composition; but as it took the place of wax as a material for sealing documents, the old name was retained.

The best is made of shellac and Venice turpentine, colored by vermilion or ivory black.

The great official seals of England, Scotland, and India are made of different colors respectively, and of various ingredients, and a great fuss is made about it.

The great seal of England is made according to a recipe preserved by the Lord Chancellor, and it makes excellent grafting-wax, as the writer knows by experiment. It comes rather high for the purpose.

The following is a good recipe: —

Melt 4 pounds of shellac: 1 pound of Venice turpentine; 3 pounds of vermilion. Incorporate by stirring, weigh into portions, and roll into sticks. Polish by exposure to a charcoal fire.

Common sealing-wax consists of resin, turpentine, red-lead.

At the Vienna Exposition were shown small sticks of variously colored sealing-wax, tipped with an inflammable compound, which, when ignited by friction, burns and fuses the wax, permitting it to be used very conveniently, without wasting or dropping, as is usually the case. The quantity in each stick is sufficient for one common or two small seals. Commenting on this, the “Technologist” says that the device is by no means new, being even older than the invention of friction-matches.

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