490 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



hour, afler which, the temperature was allowed to fall, and the fatty 

 matter separated ; it was of a yellow colour, without odour, and 

 softer than the fatty matter employed. Being* perfectly washed with 

 distilled water, it was then put into alcohol, which dissolved nearly 

 the whole of it : the solution reddened litmus paper, and beings 

 evaporated on a water-bath yielded a yellow residuum, which being 

 placed in filtering" paper, was submitted to tlie press. The pressure 

 Sfeparated a yellow liquid, very acid, soluble in all proportions in 

 alcohol and solution of potash, and susceptible of forming a com- 

 pound with baryta, insoluble in water or alcohol. The solid matter 

 jefl in the press being' agitated with hot baryta water, formed an 

 insoluble salt, which was then washed with hot alcohol, to separate 

 any fatty matter not acid ; and the salt thus purified was decomposed 

 by weak muriatic acid ; a solid fatty matter was obtained, which 

 teing washed with distilled water until the washings caused no 

 phange on nitrate of silver or vegetable colours, was then dissolved 

 in alcohol, and crystallized. 



In this state it was colourless, inodorous, and lighter thaji water. 

 It fuzed at 62° C. (144° F.) Boiling alcohol dissolved it with facility, 

 and deposited it on cooling in beautiful nacreous crystals. It red- 

 dened moistened litmus paper, and combined directly with potash 

 and baryta, forming with the first a compound analogous to com- 

 mon soap and soluble like it in alcohol and water ; and with the 

 baryta a pulverulent salt insoluble in these fluids. 



Hence it appears that the lard, when acted upon by nitric acid, is 

 converted into a mixture of oleic and margaric acids ; and, as analogy 

 and analytical experiments permit the extension of the conclusion 

 founded upon these results to all fatty bodies consisting of stearine 

 and elaine, it may be stated that the property of converting these 

 bodies into margaric and oleic acids, first observed in the alkalies, 

 then in sulphuric acid, in oxygen, and in heat, also belongs to nitric 

 acid. From this, we may be led to suppose that similar phenomena 

 occur whenever the order of the elements in stearine and elaine are 

 disturbed, in whatever manner that may be efFected.-^£i^//, Univ. 

 E, vii. 162. 



34. Ozmazome. — M. Peretti dissolved ozmazome, obtained from 

 beef, ill alcohol, and purified it by animal charcoal ; the alcoholic 

 solution then supplied him with small transparent crystals, resembling 

 those of oxalic acid in many properties, but differing in their action 

 Qu proto-sulphate of iron and nitrate of silver. It precipitated tlie 

 ^rst of a grey colour, and the second of a bright yellow hue ; whilst 

 oxalic acid, and oxalates, precipitated the first yellow, and the 

 second white. -^Giorn. Arcad. 



