Palm Oil and Cacao Butter. 1 87 



greater portion of the common brown soap made in Great 

 Britain contains no tallow at all, but consists of a mixture of 

 palm oil and common resin. The melting point of the speci- 

 men of palm oil I examined was 99° Fahr. It appeared to 

 be pretty old. Palm oil was formerly supposed to contain 

 margaric and oleic acids ; but Mr. Fremy has lately subjected 

 it to examination, and found it to contain a new acid, to which 

 he has given the name of the palmitic. I am happy in being 

 able to confirm the truth of his observations. 



The mode of proceeding to examine the constituents of 

 palm oil is to saponify it with caustic potash or soda, and then 

 to decompose the soap with muriatic or tartaric acid. The 

 mixture of palmitic and oleic acids thus obtained, is to be dis- 

 solved in boiling spirits of wine, in which it is very soluble, 

 and allowed to crystallize. The crystals are to be collected 

 and strongly pressed between folds of blotting paper, and 

 again dissolved in alcohol. These operations are to be re- 

 peated eight or nine times till the palmitic acid crystallizes quite 

 free from the oleic acid, which remains dissolved in the mother 

 liquors. Before being subjected to analysis it was once more 

 saponified, and the soap decomposed by muriatic acid. The 

 palmitic acid had then a melting point of 140° Fahr, The 

 following are the results of its analyses. 



100-00 100-00 100-00 100-00 



In order to determine the atomic weight of the acid the 

 silver salt was prepared by precipitating an alcoholic solution 

 of the soda soap with nitrate of silver. 



gramme. Oxide of silver, 



I. 0-4992 salt gave 0-1456 silver = 31-31 p. cent, oxide. 



II. 0-8204 „ „ 0-2414 „ = 31-59 „ 



III. 0-6228 „ „ 0-183 „ = 31-55 „ 



IV. 0-5375 „ „ 0-1585 „ = 31-43 „ 



V. 0-5385 „ „ 0-1575 „ = 31-41 



