432 An Account of a vegetable Waxfrovi B/az'iL 



soluble by the addition of one part of camphor to eight 

 parts of the alcohol. 



Boiling alcohol, spec. grav. '840, takes up a considerable 

 portion of castor oil and of linseed oil; it also dissolves a 

 small quantity of the oils of ahnonds and of olives; but 

 they are copiously deposited during the cooling of tl>e al- 

 cohol, and only a small portion retained in permanent so- 

 lution. 



When water is added to any of these solutions of the 

 fixed oils in ether, and in alcohol, a milky mixture is form- 

 ed, and the oil gradually separates upon the surface, with- 

 out having undergone any apparent alteration. 



6. One hundred grains of the wax were boiled for half an 

 hour in a solution of caustic potash, spec. grav. iOQO. The 

 solution acquired a pale-rose colour, but appeared to exert 

 no further action on the wax, which after having been 

 washed with warm water retained its fusibility and other 

 properties. No combination therefore, similar to a soap, 

 was produced, nor was any precipitate occasioned by the 

 addition of acids to the rose-coloured alkaline solution. 



7. The effects produced by boiling the wax in solutions 

 of pure soda, and of the subcarbonates of soda and of 

 potash, were analogous to those of the caustic potash. 



8. Solutions of pure and of carbonated anunonia exert 

 scarcely any action on the wax. 



9. When the wax is boiled in nitric acid, spec. grav. I '45, 

 there is some escape of nitrous gas, and the colour of the 

 wax is gradually changed to a deep yellow. 



When the wax is removed from the acid, and washed 

 with hot water, it is found to have become more brittle and 

 hard, but it still retains much of its peculiar odour. 



In this state it remains insoluble in the alkalies ; but they 

 now change its colour to a very bright brown, which is de- 

 stroyed by washing with dilute muriatic acid, and its original 

 yellow colour restorer! . 



Neither the fusibility nor the inflammability of the wax 

 is impaired by this process. 



Nitric acid, diluted with eight parts of water, produces 

 the same change in the colour of the wax as the concen- 

 trated acid. 



Having been unsuccessful in my attempts to bleach the 

 wax in its original state, I made some experiments to ascer- 

 tain whether its colour could be more easily destroyed, after 

 it had been acted upon by nitric acid, and found that, by 

 expobingit spread upon glass to the action of light, it be- 

 came in the course of three weeks of a pale- straw colour, 



and 



