oes aT r 
306 = «=©Dr. Smith on the Composition of Spermaceti. 
substance. Laurent and subsequently Bromeis have shown, that 
when oleic acid is oxidized by nitric acid, that suberic acid is 
one of the most abundant products of this decomposition. Now 
if spermaceti be oxidized by nitric acid no trace of suberic acid is 
furnished. 
Having then the support of both direct and indirect evidence, 
I do not hesitate to affirm that spermaceti contains no oleic acid. 
A question necessarily arising from this fact was, what was the 
acid that Chevreul had taken for oleic acid? To decide this 
the following steps were taken. That portion of the acid obtain- 
ed from the lime salt, which had not been digested with the ox- 
ide of lead, was treated with carbonate of soda, this forming a 
soda salt, which being dissolved in hot water, was decomposed 
by tartaric acid. The fat acid, thus liberated from the soda, was 
dissolved in warm alcohol, and upon allowing the solution to cool, 
a considerable quantity of the acid crystallized out. The alcohol — 
was poured off of this crystalline deposit, and concentrated by 
evaporation, from which another portion of the acid was allowed 
to crystallize. The alcohol was decanted a second time, concentra- 
ted and allowed to cool, and by repeating this four or five times, 
and at last evaporating all the alcohol away, there was left a small 
quantity of a solid fatty mass, which evidently still contained a 
considerable portion of the same acid that had been erystallized 
from the alcoholic solution. This acid had a melting point of 
68° F’. and consisted of a mixture of-a fluid and solid acid, but it 
was impossible to obtain the former, in a state of purity, and as 
consequently no accurate examination of it could be made, none 
was undertaken. 
The fluid acid that composed a portion of this mass, WS 
in too inconsiderable a quantity, to be considered an essential 
constituent of spermaceti, particularly too as its presence can ? 
plausibly accounted for. Spermaceti, as it exists in nature, 1 
mixed with an oil, from which it is separated by pressure for do- 
Mestic use ; now it is impossible that by simple. pressure 7” 
should be able to deprive the spermaceti completely of this oil, 
“but in Chevreul’s analysis, as well as in mine, the spermacetl 0 
commerce was treated with hot alcohol of .820,; still there ate 
many reasons for supposing that even by this means it-is impos 
sible to extract all the oil; either from the fact that the oil is not 
‘more soluble in alcohol than the spermaceti, or that the attraction 
pe 
