100 Gerhardt’s Organic Chemistry. 
In this series we observe a regular gradation from the volatile and 
soluble formic and acetic acids to the solid fatty acids at the other 
extremity of the scale. Those from the 4th to the 10th inelu- 
sive are oily and sparingly soluble, and present a regular increase 
of about 20° Centigrade in their boiling points; higher in the 
scale they are solid at the ordinary temperature, and the stearic 
and margaric cannot be distilled without decomposition. Red- 
tenbacher has recently shown that all the liquid acids of this 
group, with the exception of the formics, are produced in the 
oxydation of oleic acid by nitric acid.* Stearic acid by the ac- 
tion of the nitric loses two equivalents of carbon and four of 
hydrogen in the form of water and carbonie acid ; and yields the 
margaric ; which by a farther oxydation affords several of the 
volatile acids of the series. The other solid acids yield the same 
results, and are perhaps intermediate products in the oxydation of 
the margaric by nitric acid. 
By the action of nitric acid upon wax, we oxydize a portion 
of its carbon and hydrogen, and obtain a series of bodies lower 
in the scale ; among these are the succinic, pimelic, and suberic 
acids, which, as we have already seen, are homologues of the 
form R-*O0,. Spermaceti yields the same products as wax, but 
if we expose its homologue of the 2d family, aldehyde, to this 
process, it cannot yield succinic acid, which belongs to the Ath 
family, but we obtain instead its homologue in the 2d family, 
oxalic acid. . 
The results of science are continually demonstrating the unl- 
versality of the maxim of Linneus, Natura non facit saltum. 
which but one or two homologues are now known to be mem- 
bers of a complete series , 
The examples which we have given, will illustrate the features 
of this classification; which founded as it is upon the natural 
affinities of bodies and the numerical relations of their elements, 
must necessarily be permanent. set 'p 
(To be continued.) 
* This Journal, ii Ser., Vol. iii, No. 8. 
