106 M. Schiiler on Linoleic Acid. 
Becker has also prepared some of the double ethers, and 
compound thers of cetylic alcohol. They are easily obtained 
by the same methods by which the corresponding compounds of 
the lower homologues of cetylic alcohol are procured, 
Heinz* has investigated the composition of the solid part of 
olive-oil. He found that olive-oil contained palmatine as well as 
oleine, and yery probably stearine and arachine. But the diffi- 
culties attendant on the separation, in the pure form, of the 
higher acids were too great to allow this point to be stated with 
certainty. 
According to some older experiments by Sacc, linseed-oil was 
held to be the glycerine compound of two acids, of which one 
was liquid and oily, and the other solid and crystalline. The 
composition of the drying oils has been lately studied bySchiiler +, 
who communicates the results of his experiments on linseed-oil. 
The mode of inyestigation and separation of the constituents was 
that usually employed in this kind of investigation. He finds in 
it a new fatty acid, which he nameslinoleie acid. When pure it 
is a pale yellowish liquid oil, which strongly refracts light. 
Treated with nitrous acid it becomes red, and after a time viscid; 
but there is formed no elaidic acid, as is the case with oleic acid 
under these circumstances. The analyses of the salts of this 
acid did not give accordant results ; it seems to have a tendency 
to form acid salts. Numerous analyses of the pure acid gaye, 
however, numbers corresponding to the formula 
C# B® O16 B70? \HO. 
The number of equivalents of carbon exceeds that of hydrogen 
by four, while in ordinary oleic acid, C%° H** 04, the excess is 
two. From its composition and relation to nitrous acid it opens 
a new series of fatty acids. 
Schiiler thinks that the solid acid in linseed-oil is palmitic, 
and not margaric acid, as Sace had held. Linoleic and palmitic 
acids have the same number of carbon and oxygen atoms, but 
differ in the number of their hydrogen atoms, 
(32 F782 04 C32 H°8 04. 
Palmitic acid. Linoleic acid. 
Mayer { has made a very extensive and complete series of ana- 
lyses of the ashes of various seeds. Hitherto the quantitative 
relations existing between the inorganic and organic compounds 
contained in plants had not been investigated; and yet it is 
indubitable that certain mineral constituents of a plant have 
* Journal fiir Praktische Chemie, May 1857. 
+ Liebig’s Annalen, February 1857. t Ibid, 
