A way of Whiting Wax Cheaply and in Great Quantity may be a thing of good Oeconomical Use, and we have elsewhere set down the Practice of Trades-men that Blanch it; But here Treating of Whiteness only in Order to the Philosophy of Colours, I shall not Examine which of the Slow wayes may be best Employ’d, to free Wax from the Yellow Melleous parts, but shall rather set down a Quick way of making it White, though but in very Small Quantities.  Take then a little Yellow Wax, scraped or thinly sliced, and putting it into a Bolts-head or some other Convenient Glass, pour to it a pretty deal of Spirit of Wine, and placing the Vessel in Warm Sand, Encrease the Heat by degrees, till the Spirit of Wine begin to Simper or to Boyl a little; and continuing that degree of Fire, if you have put Liquor enough, you will quickly have the Wax dissolv’d, then taking it off the fire, you may either suffer it to Cool as hastily as with Safety to the Glass you can, or Pour it whilst ’tis yet Hot into a Filtre of Paper, and either in the Glass where it Cools, or in the Filtre, you will soon find the Wax and Menstruum together reduc’d into a White Substance, almost like Butter, which by letting the Spirit Exhale will shrink into a much Lesser Bulk, but still retaining its Whiteness.  And that which is pretty in the working of this Magistery of Wax, is, that the Yellowness vanishes, neither appearing in the Spirit of Wine that passes Limpid through the Filtre, nor in the Butter of Wax, if I may so call it, that, as I said, is White.

EXPERIMENT VIII.

There is an Experiment, Pyrophilus, which though I do not so exactly remember, and though it be somewhat Nice to make, yet I am willing to Acquaint You with, because the thing Produc’d, though it be but a Curiosity, is wont not a little to please the Beholders, and it is a way of turning by the help of a Dry Substance, an almost Golden-Colour’d Concrete, into a White one, the Several Tryals are not at present so fresh in my Memory to enable me to tell you Certainly, whether an Equal onely or a Double weight of Common Sublimate must be taken in reference to the Tinglass, but if I mistake not, there was in the Experiment that succeeded best, Two parts of the Former taken to One of the Latter.  These Ingredients being finely Powdred and Exactly mix’d, we Sublim’d together by degrees of fire (the due Gradation of which is in this Experiment a thing of main Importance) there ascended a matter of a very peculiar Texture, for it was for the most part made up of very Thin, Smooth, Soft and Slippery Plates, almost like the finest sort of the Scales of Fishes, but of so Lovely a White Inclining to Pearl-Colour, and of so Curious and Shining a Gloss, that they appear’d in some respect little Inferiour to Orient Pearls, and in other Regards, they seem’d to Surpass them, and were Applauded for a sort of the Prettiest Trifles that we had ever prepar’d to Amuse the Eye.  I will not undertake that though you’l hardly miss changing the Colour of your shining Tinglass, yet you will the first or perhaps the second time hit Right upon the way of making the Glistring Sublimate I have been mentioning.