of considerable economic importance, and the commissioner in charge did not hesitate to pose as an expert authority in judging substances of this kind. A sample of Nehalem wax was submitted to this official by Colonel A. W. Miller, of Portland, with the result that it was pronounced ozokerite. It should be noted, however, that a chemist in the employ of the exposition to whom the same sample was submitted insisted that it was beeswax, pure and simple.
The second circumstance tending to raise the question as to whether the substance might be beeswax or ozokerite was the publication of a series of three articles in Science (New York) during the summer of 1893. The first of these, appearing in the issue of June 16, was by Mr. George P. Merrill, head curator in the Department of Geology, United States National Museum, Washington, and was descriptive of samples of Nehalem wax received from a correspondent at Portland, Oregon. Quoting from this article:
"The samples are of a material closely resembling if not identical with beeswax. Such it would unhesitatingly have been pronounced but for certain stated conditions relating to its occurrence. * * * The material is a grayish color on the outer surface, indicating oxidation, but interiorly it has all the characteristics of genuine beeswax, as regards physical conditions, color, smell, fusing point, and conduct toward chemical reagents. * * * It is said to be found in masses of all sizes up to 250 pounds in weight; that it occurs in the sand, being found while digging clams at low tide and at a depth of twenty feet below the surface when digging wells. * * * The material has been traced for a distance of thirty miles up the river. * * * Tradition has it that many hundred years ago a foreign vessel laden with wax was wrecked off this coast. This, at first thought, seems plausible, but aside from the difficulty in accounting for the presence in these waters and at that date of a vessel loaded with wax, it seems scarcely credible that the material could be brought in a single cargo in such quantities nor buried over so large an area. * * * My correspondent states that the material has been mined by the whites for over twenty years, but not to any great extent excepting the last eight or ten years, during which time many hundred
