ACID AND THE PRODUCTS OF ITS DISTILLATION. 53 
I obtained a beautifully colourless, strongly translucent, cry- 
stalline product, which was not very hard, incapable of being 
distilled, having scarcely a perceptible odour, and which melted 
at from 30° to 31° C. (86° to 88° F.). By boiling with potass and 
addition of hydrochloric acid, the acid (stearic) with its melting 
point unchanged, and alcohol were separated. When boiled 
with carbonate of soda white flocks appeared in the liquid, and 
the remaining ether gave no rational composition. The same 
decomposition occurred on repeating this treatment: 0°3045 gr. 
of the above zether, washed only with water, yielded when burnt 
0°850 gr. carbonic acid, and 0°352 gr. water; or in 100 parts, 
OS 7 a area (7 Om ly § 
Hydrogen . .. . 12°84 
Ce ore) ye et 5) go ROD 
100°00 
These proportions represent a compound, in which one equi- 
valent of water in the hydrated stearic acid is replaced by one 
equivalent of oxide of zthyl, that is, St + EO + Aq, which 
gives the following composition :— 
Found. Equiv. Per cent. 
Senter 7p ly) ee SHORT OAS 
memuromen. $284) 21.672. B98.) s, 12°65 
emia ret OTD 2 iF. ce ett ROOD), 2% 9°86 
7101°8 100°00 
I did not succeed in preparing the ether described by Las- 
saigne, St + 2 E O; I consider moreover such a composition as 
not very probable, but rather that there exists no neutral stearic 
zther, but only an acid compound of the above-mentioned com- 
position, St + E O + Aq, or 
Be ogee tb 
St + 2 Ag 
analogous to those of the tartaric and phosphoric acids, that is to 
say, tocompounds of bibasic or polybasic acids. 
But the results may also represent a compound similar to 
stearine itself, in which the glyceryl is replaced by ethyl. 
