100 MR. EDWARD SCHUNCK ON SOME 



flocks. Tliese were filtered off, washed with alcohol to 

 remove the excess of lead-salt, and then treated with boil- 

 ing dilute caustic soda-lye, in which they melted like wax 

 or fat, without dissolving. The mass, after cooling, was 

 filtered off, washed with water, and then dissolved again in 

 boiling alcohol, to which a little animal charcoal was added. 

 The solution, which was quite colourless, deposited, after 

 filtration and cooling, a quantity of crystalline scales, of a 

 beautiful pearly lustre, and generally in such abundance 

 as to convert the liquid into a thick jelly. This deposit, 

 which was at first very bulky, on being filtered off and 

 dried, shrank considerably, and yielded at last a white or 

 faintly yellow wax-like cake, consisting of a body which I 

 propose to call Cotton-Wax. 



The alcoholic liquid from which this substance was de- 

 posited was of a dark-brown colour. It contained two 

 bodies, which, for want of a better term, may be called 

 colouring-matters, and also a small quantity of a crystalline 

 fatty acid having the properties and composition of mar- 

 garic acid. The two colouring-matters resemble one 

 another in most of their properties, but may be distin- 

 guished by their different degrees of solubility in alcohol — 

 one being easily soluble in cold alcohol, the other soluble 

 in boiling, but very little soluble in cold alcohol. As 

 these substances possess very few characteristic properties, 

 and it is indeed doubtful whether they are peculiar to 

 cotton or not, I will, instead of giving them peculiar names, 

 call the one which is most easily soluble in alcohol simply 

 Colouring -matter A, the other Colouring-matter B. These 

 bodies were separated from one another and from the fatty 

 acid in the following manner : — The liquid having been 

 evaporated, left a brown, semisolid, resinous mass, which 

 was treated with a small quantity of warm, or boiling 

 alcohol. This dissolved only a part of the mass, the re- 

 mainder being left undissolved as a brown powder, con- 



