394 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL EXP. STA._, RESEARCH BULLETIN NO. II 



mixed pigment with eighty to ninety per cent alcohol. Or if an 

 eighty to ninety per cent alcoholic solution of the mixed pigments 

 was shaken with petroleum ether, the latter solvent would completely 

 extract the carotin, leaving the xanthophylls in the alcohol. By the 

 second method especially, it was possible to show the presence of 

 xanthophyll pigments in butter fat which could not be extracted 

 from their alcoholic solution by petroleum ether. 



The Adsorption Properties. These properties were discovered by 

 Tswett. 1 They are based on the fact that carotin and the xan- 

 thophylls show a great difference in regard to the ease with which 

 they enter into combination with certain finely divided organic and 

 inorganic compounds, such as Inulin, Saccharose or CaCO 3 For 

 instance, carotin is not adsorbed at all by CaCO 3 from its perfectly 

 anhydrous carbon bisulphide or petroleum ether solutions, while the 

 xanthophylls are adsorbed to a greater or kss extent. Briefly then, 

 it has been found that if a carbon bisulphide solution (in which 

 the pigments have an unusually brilliant color) of the mixed pig- 

 ments is filtered slowly through a column of CaCO 3 , previously mois- 

 tened with the solvent, the pigments will be differentiated into zone- 

 like rings as they pass through the column, depending on their ad- 

 sorption affinity towards the CaCO 3 . Carotin being unadsorbed will 

 pass through first as a rose or red orange colored zone, with the 

 various xanthophylls distributed above as zones of different shades 

 of yellow or orange. The xanthophylls which are completely ad- 

 sorbed by the CaCO s can be washed out afterwards by a stream of 

 petroleum ether containing ten per cent absolute alcohol. 



THE PIGMENTS OF THE BODY FAT. 



The pigment of the body fat of the cow has never been subjected 

 to a critical examination. Newbigin 2 reports the only attempt to 

 identify it. He extracted the pigment from a sample of bright 

 yellow body fat and compared its properties with those of a yellow 

 pigment which he isolated from the salmon, which pigment, he says, 

 belongs to a widely distributed group of animal pigments commonly 

 confounded with the lipochrome pigments. He found the body fat 

 pigment very similar in properties to the yellow non-lipochrome 

 pigment. It did not gfive the lipochrome properties and was very 

 little soluble in methyl alcohol. Newbigin also compared the body 



1. Ber. d. Deut. Botan. Gessel. 24, pp. 316, 384 (1906). 



2. D. Noel Patton, Report of Inv. on Life History of Salmon (1898), 

 Article XN, p. 159. 



