406 MR HENRY HOW ON MECONIC ACID, 
pears after some little time. On evaporating the liquid which has ceased to give 
deposits to complete dryness, the chief constituent of the residue is found to be 
a substance fusing under boiling water ; it is more or less accompanied by the 
other bodies according to the said conditions. 
Ethylomeconic Acid. 
The first deposit I have usually found to be so nearly a pure and uniform sub- 
stance, that one recrystallisation from hot water, after a little washing, was suf- 
ficient to render it completely so; it then appeared as highly crystalline in bril- 
liant short needles. The following is its analysis :— 
9:558 ... carbonic acid, and 
5-500 grains, air-dry, gave 
I 
1860 ... water. 
5:110 grains, dried in vacuo, gave 
Il. ¢ 8:830 ... carbonic acid, and 
1685 ... water. 
Calculation. 
—_———_-$_ 



I. II. 
Carbon, . 47°39 47-12 47-36 CynLos 
Hydrogen, . 3°75 3°66 3°50 H, 8 
Oxygen, spt be 49-14 One 
100-00 100-00 100-00 228 
from which it is obvious that we have here an acid ether, analogous to phospho- 
vinic acid, in which one atom of water of a tribasic acid is replaced by an equiva- 
lent of ether; its rational formula is, therefore, 
2 HO, C,H,0 C,, HO,,, 
according to which it is a bibasic acid: this I shall presently shew to be the case. 
I propose to call this the ethylomeconic acid, in preference to meconovinic acid, 
both as more expressive of one of its constituents, and to facilitate its comparison 
with another ether, to be described shortly, which I should hardly know how to 
name otherwise than by calling biethylomeconic acid, containing, as it does, two 
equivalents of ether. 
Ethylomeconic acid, when pure, crystallises from boiling water in brilliant 
small crystals, which, when magnified, are seen to be square prismatic needles. 
It is very readily soluble in this menstruum, also in ether and common alcohol 
when warmed, less soluble in absolute alcohol. It separates from concentrated 
solutions in these three fluids in groups of stellate crystals, and when they are 
left to spontaneous evaporation, in long needles. It is anhydrous, its crystals lose 
no weight either in vacuo or at 212° Fahr. It fuses at about 316°-318° Fahr. to 
a transparent yellowish liquid, with the formation of a sublimate in very bril- 
liant rhombic crystals. 
