Marilyn Lambert, age 11, of Cape Elizabeth‑;Tex,; for her question;

What exactly is wax?

In olden days, the only furniture wax was a solid paste. It was spread over the wood and left a while to harden. Then came the long, tedious job of rub‑rub‑rubbing. Nowadays we can get waxes in liquid form. As they dry, they polish themselves. We can even get waxes in spray bottles. We press a button, wipe the misty spray smooth and in a matter of minutes it dries to form a glossy lustre, The basic ingredients in our modern waxes, however, are the same as they were in the olden days. They are natural hydrocarbons found in certain plants, animals and minerals,

Hydrocarbons are very complex chemical compounds made from the elements hydrogen and carbon. Fats are solid and oils are liquid hydrocarbons. The waxes are pasty solids and, unlike the fats and oils, they have no food value. But they have other qualities. A coat of wax keeps out moisture and protects a wood, leather or linoleum surface from scratches. As a bonus, it adds a beautiful gleaming sheen.

A household wax is usually a mixture of waxes from the plant, animal and mineral worlds. The basic paste is mixed with a lighter material called a vehicle, such as turpentine or sarae other material which tends to evaporate off into the air. The vehicle softens the pasty wax and makes it easy to spread. When it evaporates, the solid wax becomes hard and dry.

Waxes also are used in the manufacture of candles, in cold creams and salves and as sealers to keep bottles of foodstuffs airtight. The sealing wax used to seal letters before the invention of the gummed envelope, however, is not a true wax, It is made from plant rosins.

The hardest and some of the best wax is made by the oarnauba palm tree which grows in the hot, dry regions of Central America,

The candelli plant of Texas and Mexico also produces a usable wax. ,The bayberry, which is a native myrtle of North America, produces a wax which is used to make fragrant candles.

The busiest wax makers of the animal kingdon are the bees. The worker bee collects waxy hydrocarbons from a wide assortment of plants. This material is turned into beeswax inside the little workers stomach. The waxy material then oozes forth from two rows of pores on the underside of the little insect. She picks off the tiny flakes and kneads them into building material for making the waxy honeycombs. Colonies of certain scale insects also cover themselves with a protective coat of waxy material.

The wax of the mineral world comes from petroleum. We call it paraffin wax and use it to seal glass jars of food. This wax, too, is a hydrocarbon and its complex molecules may have been made by midget plants and animals that lived in the seas millions of years ago.