ON THE PINES UF AUSTRALIA. 763 
The distillation was continued for eight hours, and even 
then the shavings had a strong odour of the wood. It is 
thus evident that more material could have been obtained 
by longer distillation. Another distillation of more lightly 
packed material was continued for nine hours, this gave 
1°04%, and the product was even more solid than that from 
the first distillate. A third distillation, (8$ hours) gave 
0°765%, while a fourth (8 hourg duration) gave 0°725/, or a 
mean of 0°82°> obtained during 8 or 9 hours. 
The crude semi-solid oily product was squeezed through 
cloth, by which means the greater portion of the solid was 
retained. The cake of stearoptene was then placed between 
drying paper and subjected to pressure in a screwpress. A 
solid hard cake was thus obtained; this was dissolved in 
cold 907% alcohol, filtered, and allowed to crystallise. The 
crystals thus obtained were hexagonal prisms, terminated 
by obtuse rhombohedrons, and some were of a consider- 
able size. They were of a glistening nature and brilliant 
in appearance. The material was repeatedly crystallised 
from alcohol. It was then dissolved in alcohol and water 
added to slight turbidity, crystallisation then rapidly took 
place, most of the material separating out in small crystals. 
This appeared to be a very good method whereby to purify 
the crystals, because they were thus obtained free from 
enclosures. They were finally re-crystallised from alcohol. 
The facility of crystallisation of this substance may be 
illustrated by melting it either on water or on mercury and 
allowing it to cool slowly; as it cools, a minute trace of 
the solid is added, when crystalline threads shoot out in all 
directions, making a very fine exhibit. The melting point 
of the pure crystals was 91° C. On analysis the following 
results were obtained :—0°2273 gram gave 0°2385 gram 
H,O, and 0°6756 gram CO,; or 11°66% H and 81°07 CO. A 
second analysis gave corresponding results. Theory for 
