254 Miscellaneous Notes, 



Machado y Alvarez, " (1) Demo-Psychology, or the science which 

 studies the spirit of the people ; and (2) Demo-Biography, which 

 is the description of the mode of life of the people taken in the 

 aggregate." The council also brought forward several sugges- 

 tions made by Don Machadoy Alvarez, (1) that an International 

 Congress of Folk-lorists should be held in London in June, 1 888, 

 being the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the Society ; 

 (2) that a Committee should be appointed to study children's 

 games and the language of children, for which the lady members 

 might lend their assistance ; (3) that photography should be 

 applied to the games, festivals and popular types of all the dis- 

 tricts of England. — Academy. (E-.W.B.) 



Botanical. — Chemistry of Chlorophyll.— -After separating the 

 phyllocyanin and phylloxanthin by Eremey's method, the 

 author points out the special reactions of the former. It is insol- 

 uble in water, petroleum, ether and ligroin, but soluble in alcohol, 

 ether, chloroform, glacial acetic acid, benzol, aniline and carbon 

 disulphide, the best solvent being chloroform. A very small quan- 

 tity of the phyllocyanin imparts an intense color to all of these 

 solvents, but when very largely diluted the solutions lose their opa- 

 city. Oxidising agents easily decompose it, yielding yellow, amor- 

 phous products, the solutions of which show no absorption bands, 

 but it is more permanent than chlorophyll when exposed to the 

 combined action of air and light. Phyllocyanin dissolves in con- 

 centrated sulphuric, hydrochloric and hydrobromic acids, yielding 

 dark blue solutions, but these compounds are unstable, the addi- 

 tion of water precipitating the phyllocyanin unchanged. The 

 latter has no tendency to combine with weaker acids, such as 

 oxalic, tartaric, acetic, phosphoric, etc. Phyllocyanin readily dis- 

 solves in caustic potash or soda, from which precipitates of various 

 shades of green may be obtained with earthy and metallic salts, 

 such as barium chloride, calcium chloride, acetate of lead, acetate 

 of copper, etc. Solutions in alkali involve some change in the 

 phyllocyanin. — E. Schenck, Nature, xxxii. 217. (D. P. P.) 



Colorless Chlorophyll. — C. Timiriazeff points out that he has 

 quite recently determined that, when a chlorophyll solution is 

 treated with metallic zinc and an organic acid, it is reduced 

 through the agency of the nascent hydrogen generated in the 

 reaction, the resulting substance being perfectly colorless and 

 presenting no traces of the characteristic chlorophyll spectrum or 

 fluorescence. It is only in coming in contact with air that it gra- 

 dually acquires its green color and specific optical properties. 

 He considers that this discovery is an additional proof in favor 

 of a hypothesis announced by him in 1875, viz., that the green 

 color of this- substance is due to iron in the state of a FeOFe 2 3 

 compound. Since the product of reduction is colorless and 



