Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/46

34 to Dr. August C. Kinney, of Astoria, indicating that the wax is "a crude paraffin mixed with organic and various mineral substances." This report would apply, to beeswax, as that substance normally contains as high as fifteen per cent of paraffin, the rest being organic substances of other kinds. The mineral substances here mentioned are in all probability beach sand particles such as are frequently found in the outer crusts of Nehalem wax. The Scientific American reported to Dr. Kinney that his sample was ozokerite, but the present writer has been unable to get from that paper any statement of the characters upon which their opinion was based. A sample of Nehalem wax submitted to Mr. John F. Carll, one time state geologist of Pennsylvania, was passed on to the chemist of a large oil refinery, Mr. E. B. Gray, of the Tide Water Pipe Line Company, Bayonne, New Jersey, who made a written report to Mr. Carll stating that the substance was ozokerite, but apparently basing his opinion upon nothing more than the hardness and melting point of the sample. Mr. Gray, however, when written directly for further information, replied that he had no record of any wax received from Mr. Carll. H. A. Mears, a mining operator in Southern Oregon and a pioneer in the gilsonite fields of Utah, has mentioned several competent authorities to whom he had submitted samples of the wax with the general verdict of ozokerite. In all of these cases the attempt has been made to get statements of the exact properties of this wax which led to the decisions, but without success, changes of address and other causes preventing communication. Mr. Mears' own convictions are based upon physical examinations of the substance, and it is highly probable that all of his authorities made the same mistake. Attention is again directed to the uncertain character of all of this evidence as compared with that offered by Merrill, Stokes, and Diller, and two independent analyses given below, which, by the way, completely confirm the earlier work by these men.