106 
MR. BRODIE ON MYRICIN. 
combination with this unctuous acid, the presence of which is very probably due to 
another source. 
This alcohol may possibly, as well as the melissin, be combined with palmitic acid, 
or it may be in some altogether different form in the wax. Even after long boiling 
with alcohol, the myricin has a slight wax smell, and it is possible that this unctuous 
acid is the product of the action of potash upon the oil which is one of the con- 
stituents of the wax, and from which I have in fact procured an acid of this nature. 
This oil, or rather grease, which was analysed by Lewv, is a very curious substance. 
The other constituents of the wax are, in a pure state, inodorous and crystalline, 
and to it the wax owes its tenacity and peculiar smell. I have made some experi- 
ments as to its nature, and procured from it also an acid and an unsaponifiable 
substance ; I will not, however, here enter upon the matter, hoping at some future 
time to resume its investigation. 
I must not omit to mention, with reference to the bees’-wax from Ceylon, of which 
I spoke in a former paper, and which contained no cerotic acid, that it possesses all 
the general characters of the other portion of the wax. Like the impure myricin, it 
contains more than one substance. The wax itself has a melting-point of 65°'5. 
When digested with ether in the cold, a portion is taken up by the ether, and a residue 
left of the melting-point of 67 ° ; and, when dissolved in ether, if the etherial solution 
be filtered while warm from the first portions of the precipitate which crystallizes 
out, a substance may be obtained, of the melting-point of 72 °, crystalline in appear- 
ance, hardly at all acted on by a solution of potash, but readily saponified by melted 
potash ; resembling in short in all its properties the pure myricin. The products of 
the saponification of the wax itself closely resemble those of the impure myricin, and 
present similar difficulties of separation. 
An acid may be obtained from it having the character of palmitic acid, and I have 
also procured from this wax the substance melissin, having a melting-point of 84°. 
The analysis VI. p. 279, was made from a preparation from Ceylon wax. 
I will sum up the results of this investigation by giving a list of the principal sub- 
stances of which an account has been given in this and the preceding papers. This 
table will exhibit, at one view, their relations to one another, and to the natural 
substances from the decomposition of which they are derived. 
Cerotic acid [cerin] =^54 H 54 O 4 . 
Chlor-cerotic acid 
Cerotic ether 
— C 54 
=C58H 
1^42 O 4 . 
ICk ^ 
'12 
58 04“ 
^54 H53 O3. 
H5 O. 
=c 
58 
fH 
.Cl 
46 
o 
C4 
J 
O 3 . 
12 
H 
IC4 H5 O 
12 
Chlor-cerotic ether . . 
