58 



Prof. William B. Rogers stated the results of bis examination 

 of the Japanese Vegetable Wax lately presented to him by Henry 

 A. Peirce, Esq. of Boston, and to which reference was made at 

 the last meeting. This substance has the whiteness and apparent 

 purity of bleached beeswax, from which, however, it differs in 

 various particulars both as to mechanical and chemical relations. 



At ordinary temperatures this vegetable wax is more brittle 

 and less ductile than beeswax and breaks with a smoother and 

 more conchoidal fracture. Its specific gravity is slightly less, 

 and its melting point, about 127°, is more than 20^ lower than 

 the temperature at which beeswax becomes liquid. 



Like the latter substance this vegetable wax is separable, by 

 alcohol, into three fatty bodies, of which one is soluble in the 

 liquid at ordinary temperatures, another only in hot alcohol, and 

 a third is insoluble in it at any temperature. An experiment 

 made to determine the proportion of these ingredients in the 

 vegetable wax gave the following result, in round numbers, in 

 100 parts : — 



Soluble in cold alcohol (Temp. 60°) 12 parts. 



Soluble only in hot alcohol, 55 " 



Insoluble in alcohol, 33 " 



According to Brodie, beeswax similarly treated with alcohol 

 yields only four or five per cent, of matter which is soluble in the 

 liquid when cold, and twenty-two per cent, which dissolves in it 

 when boiling, while the remainder amounting to nearly three- 

 fourths of the whole weight is entirely insoluble in this liquid. 

 Of these three ingredients called respectively Cerolein, Cerotic 

 Acid and Myricine, Brodie found the two former, viz : those solu- 

 ble in cold and hot alcohol, to have the character of fatty acids, 

 while the third or Myricine proved to be a neutral fat, com- 

 pounded of Palmitic Acid and a fatty base. The three corre- 

 sponding substances isolated by alcohol from the vegetable wax, 

 difier from these in some of their physical properties, and may, on 

 closer examination, be found to consist wholly or in part of dis- 

 tinct and perhaps new fatty bodies. 



The substance separated by alcohol at the common tempera- 

 ture is a soft, scarcely solid fat, which becomes entirely fluid at 

 about 100°. With solution of litmus it exhibits quite a strong 



