434         FATTY  ACIDS  FOR  CANDLE  AND  SOAP  MAKING. 
MANUFACTURE   OF    FATTY  ACIDS  FOR  CANDLE  AND 
SOAP  MAKING. 
By  H.  M.  Mege-Mouries. 
My  researches  on  amylaceous  grains,  especially  wheat,  have 
furnished  the  means  of  substituting  for  brown  bread,  in  Paris, 
a  cheaper  and  more  nourishing  kind. 
Analagous  studies  on  oleaginous  grains  have  altogether  mo- 
dified the  economical  conditions  of  two  great  manufactures.  I 
will  proceed  at  once  to  the  results. 
In  oleaginous  grains  during  germination,  as  in  the  animal 
economy  during  life,  neutral  fats  pass,  before  undergoing  any 
other  modifications,  into  the  state  of  very  mobile  globules,  pre- 
senting a  very  large  surface  to  the  action  of  reagents. 
In  this  globular  state,  fatty  bodies  manifest  peculiar  proper- 
ties ;  we  will  mention  those  directly  connected  with  the  subject 
of  this  memoir. 
1st.  A  fatty  body  in  the  ordinary  state — suet,  for  instance — 
quickly  becomes  rancid  by  exposure  to  damp  air :  in  the  state 
of  globules,  on  the  contrary,  it  will  keep  for  a  long  time,  either 
liquid  or  dry,  and  as  a  kind  of  white  powder  (I  possess  speci- 
mens prepared  in  June,  1863). 
The  globular  state  may  be  produced  by  yolk  of  egg,  bile,  al- 
buminous matters,  &c. ;  for  industrial  purposes,  it  is  produced 
by  mixing  tallow,  melted  at  45°,  with  water  at  45°,  holding  in 
solution  from  five  to  ten  per  cent,  of  soap. 
2d.  Tallow,  in  the  ordinary  state,  like  other  fatty  bodies, 
resists  washings  in  hot  soda  ley,  and  combines  with  it  only 
with  very  great  difficulty ;  in  the  globular  state  on  the  contra- 
ry, it  immediately  absorbs  this  washing  out,  in  quantities  vary- 
ing with  the  temperature,  so  that  it  is  possible,  so  to  speak,  to 
distend  and  contract  each  globule  by  lowering  or  raising  the 
temperature  between  45°  and  60°. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  that  in  this  case  each  globule  of  the 
fatty  matter,  attacked  on  all  sides  by  alkali,  abandons  its  gly- 
cerine with  such  rapidity  as  speedily  to  produce  a  liquid  in 
which  each  globule  is  a  perfect  soap  globule,  inflated  with  lixi- 
vium.   This  can  be  effected  in  two  or  three  hours. 
3d.  These  saponified  globules,  when  exposed  above  60°,  gra- 
