10S Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



Brodie showed that the main constituent of " cerin " is cerotic acid, to 

 which he gave the formula C 27 H 54 2 . Many years afterwards E, Henriques 1 

 proved that the formula for cerotic acid is C 26 H 52 2 . 



According to Brodie myricin, on distillation, gave a mixture of fatty acids, 

 the chief of which was palmitic, and hydrocarbons, such as melene ; and on 

 hydrolysis by means of alcoholic potash, it was converted into melissyl 

 alcohol and potassium palmitate — reactions which prove that myricin is the 

 melissyl ester of palmitic acid. He also found that when melissyl alcohol is 

 heated with potash-lime it forms melissic acid (C 3 (,H c „0 2 ), and as he made no 

 mention of the occurrence in the wax of any other alcohol, ceryl alcohol 

 excepted, the conclusion to be drawn from his results is that the chief 

 unsaponifiable constituent of beeswax is melissyl alcohol (with some ceryl 

 alcohol). 



After Brodie had established the general chemical character of the wax, 

 the first to undertake a detailed examination of its non-acid constituents was 

 Schwalb. 2 



Schwalb showed that beeswax contains about 7 per cent, of hydrocarbons, 

 and that the melissyl alcohol described by Brodie is really a mixture of three 

 alcohols, namely, melissyl alcohol (C 31 H c4 ?), ceryl alcohol (C 27 H M 0, or 

 C M H 54 0), and an alcohol having either the formula C 25 H 52 0, or C 24 H 50 O. He 

 isolated from myricin two hydrocarbons which had nearly the same melting- 

 points and percentage-compositions as normal heptacosane (C 27 H 5C ), and 

 normal hentriacontane (C 31 H 64 ). 



In 1890, A. and P. Buisine 3 undertook a complete quantitative examination 

 of beeswax, determining the percentages of cerotic acid, combined palmitic 

 acid, combined alcohols and hydrocarbons in several samples of wax. 



The method they used for the estimation of the alcohols was similar to 

 that which Hell 4 had previously described for the determination of the 

 molecular weights of the higher primary alcohols. It consisted of measuring 

 the volume of the hydrogen which was evolved when a weighed quantity of 

 the wax was heated with a mixture of powdered potash and potash-lime 

 to a temperature of 250° C. for two hours. The hydrocarbons were estimated 

 in the same operation as that which served for the determination of the 

 alcohols. When all the hydrogen had been evolved, the alcohols had presum- 

 ably been converted into acids, and been fixed by the potash. The substances 



1 Ber. Deutsch. Chem. Gesell. 1897, xxx., p. 1418. 



2 Liebig's Annalen der Chemie u. Pharm., 1886, ccxxxv., p. 106. 



3 Bull. Soc. Chim., 1890 [3], iii., p. 867. 



4 Liebig's Annalen der Chem. u. Pharm., 1884, ccxxiii., p. 264. 



