The oldest materials employed for making candles are beeswax and tallow.  The beeswax was bleached before use.  The tallow was melted and strained and then cotton or flax fibers were dipped into it repeatedly, until the desired thickness was obtained.  In early centuries the pith of rushes was used for wicks.  Tallow is now used only as a source of stearine.  Spermaceti, a fatty substance obtained from the sperm-whale, was introduced into candle-making in about 1750 and great numbers of men searched the sea to fill the growing demands.  Paraffin wax, a mixture of solid hydrocarbons obtained from petroleum, came into use in 1854 and stearine is now used with it.  The latter increases the rigidity and decreases the brittleness of the candle.  Some of the modern candles are made of a mixture of stearine and the hard fat extracted from cocoanut-oil.  Modern candles vary in composition, but all are the product of much experience and of the application of scientific knowledge.  The wicks are now made chiefly of cotton yarn, braided or plaited by machinery and chemically treated to aid in complete combustion when the candle is burned.  Their structure is the result of long experience and they are now made so that they bend and dip into the molten fuel and are wholly consumed.  This eliminates the necessity of trimming.

Candles have been made in various ways, including dipping, pouring, drawing, and molding.  Wax-candles are made by pouring, because wax cannot be molded satisfactorily.  Drawing is somewhat similar to dipping, except that the process is more or less continuous and is carried out by machinery.  Molding, as the term implies, involves the use of molds, of the size and shape desired.

The candlestick evolved from the most primitive wooden objects to elaborately designed and decorated works of art.  The primitive candlestick was crude and was no more than a holder of some kind for keeping the candle upright.  Later a form of cup was attached to the stem of the holder, to catch the dripping wax or fat.  The latter improvement has persisted throughout the centuries.  The modern candle is by no means an unsatisfactory light-source.  Those who have had experience with it in the outskirts of civilization will testify that it possesses several desirable characteristics.  Supplies of candles are transported without difficulty; the lighted candle is easily carried about; and the light in a quiescent atmosphere is quite satisfactory, if common sense is used in shading and placing the candle.  Although in a sense a primitive light-source, it is a blessing in many cases and, incidentally, it is extensively used to-day in industries, in religious ceremonies, as a decorative element at banquets, and in the outposts of civilization.

This account of the evolution of light-sources has crossed the threshold of what may be termed modern scientific light-production in the case of the candle and the oil-lamp.  There is a period of a century or more during which scientific progress was slow, but those years paved the way for the extraordinary developments of the last few decades.