Paraffin
or PARAFFINE, a solid, fatty substance, produced along with other substances in the dry or destructive distillations of various organic matters, such as coal, bituminous shale, lignite, peat, etc., at a low red heat. It is found along with liquid oils in petroleum, and in the native state in coal and bituminous strata, known as fossil, wax, ozokerite, etc. Paraffin is a mixture of several hydrocarbons, probably homologues of marsh gas of high atomic weight. Many of the paraffins are found ready formed in petroleum and other mineral oils. In mining, a name adopted for a group of native hydrocarbons, having the general composition: Carbon, 85.71; hydrogen, 14.29 = 100. It embraces the species urpethite, hatchettite, ozocerite, zietrisikite, and elaterite.