256 Mr. B. C. Brodie on Myricine. 



sary before this hydrocarbon can be procured in a pure state, 

 I have been unable to make further experiments with the pure 

 substance. The analyses, however, the analogy of this other 

 substance and the mode of its formation, can leave no doubt 

 but that it is the hydrocarbon of the wax alcohol CgQ Hgg, to 

 which may be given the name of melene. 



The Nature of Myricine. 



The analogy of the products of the decomposition of myri- 

 cine by alkalies and by heat, to those of the Chinese wax and 

 of spermaceti under similar circumstances, would lead us to 

 suspect that a similar relation exists between the substances to 

 which these products are due. If, however, we take the 

 numbers which have been obtained by analysis for this body, 

 those for example of Ettling*, or those of Lewy f, and attempt 

 from these to reckon out a formula which shall give a rational 

 account of these decompositions, we find a considerable defi- 

 ciency of carbon. I give one of Lewy's analyses, with which 

 other analyses of himself and other chemists are sufficiently 

 accord ant if . 



Carbon . . . . 80-28 



Hydrogen . . . 13'34< 



Oxygen .... 6-38 



100-00 



The formula C92 H92 O4, which would account in a simple 

 manner for the decompositions, — 



100-00 676 



leaving a difference of one and a half per cent, of carbon, a 

 difference too great to be attributed to any accidental error. 



I have stated that the decompositions of the myricine are 

 far from being so simple as those of the Chinese wax, and that 

 in order to obtain either the acid or the wax alcohol, long 

 and repeated crystallizations are necessary. This at once led 



* Liebig's Annalen, vol.ii. p.267. t Annates de Chimie, vol.xiii. p. 443. 



t Ibid. 



