Mr. B. C. Brodie on Myricijie. 245 



solution. This affords us a ready test of the presence of the 

 cerotic acid. The wax may be long boiled with alcohol before 

 the whole of the cerotic acid is removed. If however this 

 process of boiling and decantation be continued, a time will 

 come when the acetate of lead will cease to give any precipi- 

 tate whatever in the hot alcoholic extract. The residue after 

 this extraction I speak of as myricine. It is advisable to con- 

 tinue for two or three times the operation of boiling and de- 

 canting, even after the acetate gives no precipitate, the cero- 

 tate of lead not being entirely insoluble in the hot solution. 



The myricine thus prepared is a greenish substance of about 

 the consistency of wax, uncrystalline, still possessing a slight 

 smell of wax, and of a melting-point of 64-° C. This substance 

 is hardly acted on by dilute potash. It is however saponified 

 by boiling with strong potash, and more readily by an alco- 

 holic solution of the alkali. The saponification may also be 

 effected by melting it with hydrate of potash, as in the case of 

 the Chinese wax. The products are the same in whichever 

 way the operation be conducted. 



If the soap from the saponification of the myricine be treated 

 in the same manner as the similar soap from the Chinese wax*, 

 it also will be found to contain two substances, an acid and 

 another substance which is contained in the aether with which 

 the baryta salt is extracted. On attempting to purify these 

 substances respectively by crystallization out of alcohol, aether 

 or absolute alcohol, great variations in the melting-point both 

 of the acid and of the basic substance will be observed. And 

 careful observation shows that these are not, as in the case of 

 the Chinese wax, substances in a state of comparative chemical 

 purity, but are mixtures, both in the case of the acid and of 

 the other matter, of at least two bodies difficultly separable 

 from one another. It is the separation of these substances 

 which gives a peculiar difficulty to the investigation of the 

 nature of myricine. 



Although the acid and basic products of the saponification 

 may thus, as in the case of the Chinese wax, be separated by 

 precipitation of the soao by a baryta salt, in the case of the 

 bees'-wax these substances admit of a simpler method of sepa- 

 ration, without which method, so difficult is it to wash per- 

 fectly out the baryta salt, that I question whether the sub- 

 stances could be obtained pure. The soap, in whatever way 

 the saponification may have been effected, and after the alcohol, 

 if any, used for the saponification has been distilled off", is to 

 be dissolved in a large quantity of water, and the boiling so- 

 lution decomposed by an acid. The melted mass which re- 

 * Phil. Mag. vol. xxxiii. p. 381. 



