The Cruise of the Cachalot." It was
at the end of the eighteenth century that spermaceti became so
abundant in the market that candles of it were manufactured and sold
cheaper than those of wax. From about 1860 it was superseded by
paraffin and other wax-like products: and it was at its cheapest
period, and when it was most widely in use, that Lucas, the English
artist, who made many wax busts and statuettes, is known to have mixed
it, in the form of "old candles," with beeswax, in order to form the
composition which he used in his works. The evidence given by the
chemist, Dr. Pinkus, appears to me to be conclusive (even without the
evidence of the old clothes stuffed into the hollow of the bust)
against the theory that the Bode wax-bust of Flora is more ancient
than the nineteenth century, and much in favour of its being the work
of Lucas, who is exceptionally known as a wax-modeller of repute sixty
years ago, who did use spermaceti.

Spermaceti is a perfectly definite chemical body, which can be
recognised without chance of error. It is a combination of palmitic
acid and a peculiar hydrocarbon, called (after the whale) "cetyl," and
easily forms pure crystals. Before sperm whales were hunted it was
obtained in relatively small quantity from individual sperm whales,
which by misadventure landed themselves on the coast of France, Spain,
or Great Britain, and was eagerly purchased by the apothecaries and
perfumers of the great cities of Europe. There are several records of
such strange mistakes on the part of the great sperm whale. Only ten
or fifteen years ago one was stranded on the Lincolnshire coast,
whilst the specimen exhibited in the Natural History Museum was washed
ashore at Thurso in Caithness. The spermaceti is found dissolved in
the more ordinary oil (or fat), which occupies a huge region above the
bones of the upper jaw and gives the sperm whale its barrel-shaped
head. It separates on cooling, from the liquid oil, in crystalline
flakes, forming great masses, which are purified by re-melting and
cooling. In early times the fine waxy, flaky material thus obtained
was known in samples of a few ounces, and sold by apothecaries. It was
known that it came from a whale, and was believed to be the seed or
sperm of that animal, hence its name "spermaceti." M. Pomel, whom I
cited above, believed it to come from the brain of the whale called
"cachalot." No one would have dreamt in the sixteenth century of
mixing this p