322 Prof. Pringsheim on Hypochlorin and the 



bursting of the whole grain lias taken place), they consist 

 only of the torn fragments of the envelope of the ruptured 

 grain. All these solid residues are formed of the so-called 

 protoplasmatic foundation of the chlorophyll-body and its 

 inflated starch-enclosures, and are more or less strongly tinged 

 with green by nearly unaltered chlorophyll-colouring-matter. 

 The oil-drops separated from these solid residues by the 

 warm water or hot vapour, and escaped from the chlorophyll- 

 bodies, which always dissolve readily and completely in alcohol 

 or ether, are also tinged more or less with chlorophyll- 

 colouring-matter, most of them in different tints of green and 

 blue ; but the darker ones even appear reddish brown, and 

 then, leaving out of consideration the smaller size, produce 

 the same external impression as the first-mentioned drops of 

 the hypochlorin-mixture separated by hydrochloric acid. 

 Nevertheless I do not think that they are identical with the 

 latter. They are distinguished not only by the less degree 

 and generally greater purity of their chlorophyll-green colora- 

 tion, but also by their readier solubility in alcohol, and, lastly, 

 by their more regular drop-like shape and especially by their 

 permanence in heat. I therefore (as I may here state in 

 anticipation) hold that these oil-drops represent a second non- 

 volatile and uncrystallizable oil present in the chlorophyll- 

 body, which exists in it side by side with the volatile and 

 crystallizable hypochlorin, and in association with the latter 

 forms those irregular masses which issue from the chlorophyll- 

 bodies under the influence of hydrochloric acid. 

 My reasons for this opinion are as follows : — 

 It is, in the first place, exceedingly striking that the oil- 

 drops extractible from the chlorophyll-bodies by heat are very 

 much inferior in their mass to the masses of oleaginous sub- 

 stance which can be separated from the same chlorophyll- 

 bodies by hydrochloric acid. Of those large, irregularly 

 bounded, diversely pointed and angular masses which appear 

 under the influence of hydrochloric acid, nothing is to be seen 

 under the action of moist heat. The drops which issue in 

 this case are smaller and more or less exactly spherical ; and 

 they do not solidify, but remain fluid. They contain none, or 

 mere traces, of that crystallizable substance which, in the 

 masses separated by hydrochloric acid, calls forth those sin- 

 gular changes of form which I have already described. 



We cannot, however, assume that this substance is still 

 present in the solid residues of the heated chlorophyll-bodies 

 and was merely not separated by the action of heat ; for by 

 subsequent treatment with hydrochloric acid no further in- 

 creased or fresh separation of oil can be effected. With 



