460 
Ghea-  or  Shea-Butter. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1      Sept.,  1879. 
GHEA-  OR  SHEA-BUTTER. 
By  C.  Deite. 
This  fat  is  prepared  from  the  seeds  of  Bassia,  a  tree  growing  in  India 
and  the  western  parts  of  Africa.  Various  species  of  the  order  bassia 
yield  fat,  that  •  from  which  ghea-butter  is  obtained  being  called  by 
Kotschy  Butyrospermum  Parkii ;  by  Olivier,  Bassia  Parkii.  The  fruit 
from  which  this  fat  is  extracted  is  the  size  of  a  pigeon's  egg.  A  thin 
husk  surrounds  a  fleshy  substance  possessing  an  agreeable  taste.  This 
substance  covers  a  kernel  from  which  the  butter  is  prepared  in  the 
following  manner.  The  kernels  are  dried  in  the  sun,  pounded,  placed 
in  large  earthenware  vessels,  and  boiled  with  water.  The  fat  which 
rises  to  the  surface  is  skimmed  off.  It  as  of  a  grey-  or  green-white 
color,  and  has  a  peculiar  tough,  sticky  consistency,  similar  to  a  mixture 
of  fat  and  turpentine,  and  possesses  a  peculiar  aromatic  smell.  It  may 
be  kept  for  a  considerable  time  without  turning  rancid,  and  is  there- 
fore used  very  largely  as  lard.  According  to  Thomson  and  Wood,  its 
melting  point  is  43*3°  ;  Chateau  gives  290,  and  the  Brussels  Stearin 
Company  230  to  240.  Thomson  and  Wood  have  obtained  a  solid 
acid  from  this  fat,  melting  at  61  °,  which  they  call  margaric  acid. 
According  to  Oudemanns,  this  substance  is  a  mixture  of  a  solid  fatty 
acid,  melting  at  6i°,  and  a  liquid  acid.  The  former  is  stearic  acid, 
and,  according  to  Pelouze  and  Boudet,  the  liquid  fat  is  olein.  By 
treating  ghea  butter  with  concentrated  sulphuric  acid  and  distilling, 
fatty  acids  melting  at  52 — 540  are  obtained,  which,  when  pressed,  give 
a  stearin  melting  above  6o°.  In  spite  of  its  high  melting  point,  this 
substance  is  soft  and  friable — a  circumstance  which  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  pure  stearic  acid  and  not  a  mixture  of  solid  fatty  acids.  It  is 
therefore  necessary  to  mix  this  fat  with  palmitin  or  some  other  solid 
fat,  otherwise  it  is  difficult  to  use  it  in  candle-making.  On  the  coast 
of  Coromandel  this  fat  is  used  for  soap  making,  the  product  obtained 
representing  a  hard,  white  mass,  which,  however,  does  not  form  a 
lather. — Jour.  Chem.  6V.,  July,  1877,  from  Ding/.  Polyt.  Jour. 
ANALYSIS  OF  CAOUTCHOUC. 
By  D.  Lindo. 
In  the  analyses  of  different  samples  of  vulcanized  caoutchouc,  the 
percentage  of  ash  varied  from  627  to  32*07,  that  of  zinc  oxide  from 
