Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/49

Rh While the identity of Nehalem wax with beeswax is established in this way beyond question there exists a puzzling discrepancy in the case of two of the characters investigated, the "acid" and "ether" values. These average for true beeswax 20 and 74, respectively, while for Nehalem wax they are 8.4 and 98.6. It was at first thought that the great age of the Nehalem material, together with its exposure for so long a period to the agencies which at the sea coast are so actively destructive to animal and vegetable matter, would account for the anomaly. There was an objection to such an assumption, however, in the fact that old or bleached waxes usually give higher acid values than fresh waxes. It was a matter of great satisfaction, therefore, to learn that a recent investigation into the analytical characters shown by waxes coming from the south and east of Asia indicates that these are distinguished from all others by a low acid number, ranging from 6.3 to 9, and a high ether number, 85.5 to 99.5 (R. Berg in Chemische Zeitung, Vol. 31, p. 337). The actual analysis of a wax from Annam illustrates the point and is included in the table above.

The significance of the above fact in its bearing upon the origin of the Nehalem deposit is very evident. It is not only beeswax with which we are concerned, but beeswax from the Orient. The suggestion that the wrecked vessel was engaged in the carrying trade between the Philippines and Mexico is by no means a new one. Professor Davidson, who for half a century has been actively engaged in material to prove or disprove the existence of the Davidson Inshore Eddy Current along the Northwestern coast, is our highest present authority upon the matter of what the sea casts up on these shores. In a recent letter he says:

""My present belief is that the wax is from a wrecked galleon which, by stress of weather on her voyage from the Philippines, had been driven farther north than the usual route. They frequently got as high as 43 degrees, and I know of one wreck as high as the latitude of the Queniult River, Washington.""