ON ADIPOCIRE, AND ITS FORMATION. 7 
are fluid at 62°, and on cooling begin to cloud at 58°, and are opaque at 50°. ‘The residue on 
the filter weighed about four grammes, and viewed under the microscope, consisted of mem- 
branous matter, wool, dirt, and the white element of cellular tissue; it gave ammonia with 
potassa solution, and nitrogen by Laissaigne’s test, together with a strong smell of phos- 
phuretted hydrogen when the water was added in the latter test. This residue burned, 
gave thirty per cent. of ash. The following is the per centage result for the adipocire:— 
Solid fatty acids, a little oleic acid, and coally matter, : 94.2 
Membranous matter and cellular tissue, . . é 2.3 
Ash and dirt, : 0 : : . . 3.5 
100.0 
The portion of fatty acid which passed through the filter by melting, contained 0.73 
per cent. of a dark-coloured ash, principally lime, with iron, and traces of phosphoric and 
sulphuric acids, potash and soda. The potash and soda were detected by Dr. Lawrence 
Smith’s beautiful method by polarized light, which I have frequently used with success. 
Tn this instance, the quantity of material was so small, that neither the potash nor soda 
could be detected by the usual method. 
[An experiment was tried to ascertain whether the fatty acids would dissolve phos- 
phate of lime. About six or eight grammes of fatty acid, (the residue from the hot press of 
the candle factories, crystallized from much alcohol, and of which one gramme left no 
appreciable ash by experiment) were kept for half an hour melted with pulverized bone 
ashes. One gramme of this gave an ash of only a quarter of a milli-gramme; when this was 
dissolved in hydrochloric acid and neutralized by ammonia, it was impossible to conclude 
whether there was a precipitate or not. ] 
Sixty grammes of the fatty acids were then saponified with potash ley, according to 
Chevreul’s proportions, during which operation neither ammonia nor cholesterine could be 
detected. The soap was decomposed by tartaric acid, and washed several times by melt- 
ing with water; it dissolved thus in alcohol with reddish brown colour, and after filtering 
hot, was suffered to deposit the greater part of its fat on cooling. The crystals thus de- 
posited were nacreous scales, and of lustre like the feathers of moth wings; when melted, 
they weighed 26 grammes, and had a goat-like smell; by further standing, the alcohol 
deposited four grammes of very translucent crystals, with traces of stellar groupings. A 
third crop of crystals by spontaneous evaporation was obtained, which was small in 
quantity, weighing 0.6 grammes, and, when melted, cooled with a flat, waxy, surface, 
with traces of stellar aggregations. The mother alcohol of this last crystallization, was 
treated with an alcoholic solution of acetate of lead. The lead salts, treated in the usual 
manner by ether, yielded a few drops of very highly coloured oleic acid. From the in- 
soluble lead salts, the fat was separated. 
