Mr. B. C. Brodie om Myricine. 263 



regarded as the aldehyde of stearic acid, and was capable of 

 passing into that substance by a simple process of oxidation, 

 a view of its chemical nature entirely without foundation. 

 From the preceding inquiry, we arrive however at the know- 

 ledge of a no less remarkable relation between these substances. 



Margaric acid was recently the last of that singular series 

 of acids of the type Cm^mO^.) which commencing with formic 

 acid comprehended acetic acid, the volatile acids of butter and 

 the acid of spermaceti, and aethal was the last of the corre- 

 sponding alcohols. In the wax acids and alcohols of which 

 an account has been given in this and the preceding papers, 

 we have bodies at the other extremity of the series standing 

 in a similar relation to margaric acid and to aethal, as that in 

 which acetic and butyric acid, and alcohol and potatoe oil 

 stand to them at the commencement. An intervening acid 

 of the series, the acid C44 H44 O4, has lately been discovered 

 by Volcker* in the oil of the Guilandina Moringa, and the 

 investigation of the numerous class of vegetable oils and waxes 

 will doubtless afford other bodies of the group. 



Notwithstanding the many different properties of these sub- 

 stances, we find their chemical analogies constant, and the 

 mutual relation of the acid, the alcohol and the hydrocarbon, 

 is the same between bodies containing sixty as between those 

 containing only four equivalents of carbon. Through at least 

 half the series, from thirty to sixty equivalents, the same phy- 

 sical type of fat prevails. As a fat is doubtless but a soft kind 

 of wax, so may not alcohol be but a very fluid form of fat ? 

 Alcohol has not yet been solidified, but one cannot help sus- 

 pecting that when solidified it will appear as a wax or fat. 



Direct experiment has shown us that in the body of the bee 

 sugar is converted into wax. A simple analysis of the two 

 substances showed that the carbon and hydrogen were in the 

 same ratio in both, and that the change could be effected by 

 a simple deoxidation of the sugar. Of the way in which this 

 change is eflfected we are ignorant. The true formula of these 

 wax substances however shows that they belong to the very 

 type of bodies which are the ordinary products of fermenta- 

 tion, and are connected with them by the strongest chemical 

 analogies. A new mode of fermentation produced butyric 

 acid out of sugar; might not another kind of fermentation 

 produce wax? 



Until we know the nature of the whole of the ingredients 

 of the wax, it is useless to speculate on the law of such a 

 change. Although the wax itself is no pure chemical sub- 

 stance, but a mixture of substances differing nearly three per 

 * Liebig's Annalen, vol. Ixiv. p. 342. 



