Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/51

A most interesting feature of the question is presented by the appearance of the wax as it is taken from the sand of the beach. Some mention of this has already been made in the articles my Merrill and Diller given above. The irregular pieces have occurred in a great variety of sizes and shapes, while the "candles" vary from a half inch to three inches in diameter and up to ten inches in length, in all cases being broken, apparently, from greater original lengths. The wicks are usually entirely missing, an axial cavity occupying the place. In a specimen owned by the writer there is to be seen the conical cavity formerly common in candles for supporting them upon wooden pegs. A considerable number of the larger pieces of wax have been in the form of well-defined cakes bearing mysterious markings. One of these cakes is preserved in the Portland City Museum, together with several pieces of less regular shape and some candles. Most of them have been melted and sold, however, and the engraved characters consequently destroyed. Tracings of the characters have been preserved in a few cases, while enough others have been reproduced from memory to give a fair idea of their nature. Their meaning is problematical, although it is fairly certain that they are the brands of the makers or dealers originally handling them. In the various efforts that have been made to get light upon the origin of the wax these characters have been submitted to high authorities among the Japanese and Russians, as well as to Latin scholars in the Roman Catholic church and the libraries of Germany, but always without obtaining the least clue regarding their significance. Through the kindness of Dr. F. F. G. Schmidt, of the University of Oregon, a special effort was made during the summer of 1907 to get an interpretation of the marks from German sources. Even men highly skilled in deciphering old Latin manuscripts, in which a whole word or phrase is sometimes embodied in a single monogram-like character, failed to recognize anything intelligible in the marks. An