Vol. I, No. 3.] Composition of the orl from Bir Bahott. 77 
[ENA S.,] 
poured in a thin stream into a boiling solution of lead acetate 
(7 per cent.) with constant agitation. The operation was conducted 
in a flask according to Tortelli and Ruggeri’s modification of Var- 
rentrap’s method. The solution was cooled and the supernatant 
liquid poured off and the lead salt washed with lukewarm water 
and then dried with filter paper. The lead salts in the flask were 
then warmed with ether on the water bath, and shaken, until they 
had completely disintegrated. The flask was kept at a tempera- 
ture of 10° for 24 hours,and then the liquid was filtered. The 
filtrate was decomposed with dilute hydrochloric acid, washed, and 
the ether evaporated off in a stream of dry carbonic acid. The 
unsaturated acids obtained in this way gave an iodine value of 84, 
They were almost colourless, having a faint yellow tint, and remained 
liquid at the temperature of the laboratory, which was about 
17° Centigrade. Compared with the acids left after trituration 
with alcohol ‘911, the amount was not large. 
The lead salts, insoluble in ether, were also decomposed with 
hydrochloric acid and washed and dried. The acids were then 
added to the mixed fractions from trituration with alcohol men- 
tioned above. This mixture then contained all the saturated 
fatty acids. 
These mixed saturated acids were then treated according to a 
suggestion of Partheil and Ferié. The solubilites in alcohol of the 
lithium salts of oleic lauric, myristic, palmitic and stearic acids 
differ sufficiently for it to be theoretically possible to separate 
them. In the following, Partheil and Ferie’s directions were 
followed, but the alcohol used was the “absolute alcohol” of the 
laboratory and was subsequently found to have a sp. gr. of *809. 
The acids (8 grams) were saponified with 120 c. ¢. of half 
normal alcoholic potash, and the soap dissolved in 800 c.c, of 50 
per cent. alcohol. A ten per cent. solution of lithium acetate in 50 
per cent. alcohol was added, and the mixture warmed on the water 
bath to 60°. Nearly the whole of the precipitate formed at first 
passed into solution, and on cooling, a quantity of minute crystals 
separated out. These were filtered off, washed with 50 per cent. 
alcohol,and the filtrate which should have contained lithium oleate, 
together with the lithium salts of the less saturated acids, was put 
on one side, 
The lithium salts precipitated on cooling the solution in 50 
per cent, alcohol were dissolved in hot absolute alcohol A large 
amount was required, but the whole of the precipitate was brought 
into solution, The solution was then allowed to stand in the cold 
for 24 hours, at the end of which time there had settled down a 
precipitate which should have been the lithium salts of palmitic 
and stearic acids. There was only a small quantity of this preci- 
pitate, but it was filtered off, the free acid liberated in the usual 
manner, well washed and crystallized from alcohol. The acid thus 
obtained had a melting point of 54°.5 to 55°, and was probably a 
mixture of stearic and myristic acids in equal proportions. Accord- 
ing to Reintz such a mixture melts at 54°.5, and as will be shown 
