accompanying Chlorophyll, and their Spectroscopic Relations. 181 



crude alcoholic extracts with an excess of animal charcoal in the cold 

 for about an hour, which removes all the chlorophyll and leaves a 

 yellow solution, which gives no absorption bands in the red, yellow, or 

 green, but four distinctive bands situated in the violet and ultra-violet 

 region of the spectrum. The prolonged action of animal charcoal has 

 the effect of ultimately absorbing all the colouring matters, leaving the 

 solution colourless. By this means the yellow colouring matters can 

 be obtained free from chlorophyll, but I have not been able to recover 

 the latter from the animal charcoal. This was tried by boiling the 

 charcoal with ether, the result being a greenish-yellow solution, giving 

 the four bands in the violet as before, but, in addition, a faint band in 

 the red, showing that it consisted of a portion of the yellow colouring 

 matters which had been absorbed by the charcoal together with a trace 

 of chlorophyll which caused the greenish colour, and the faint band in 

 the red region of the spectrum. 



Yellow solutions obtained in this way from some chlorophyll 

 extracts — which, when freshly prepared, show signs of decomposition, 

 viz., the fourth band in the visible region of the spectrum darker 

 and the third fainter — show only the first two or three bands in the 

 violet region, the rest of the violet and ultra-violet being obscured. 

 In such cases a separation can be effected by ether, the yellow colouring 

 matter causing the obscuration remaining in the alcoholic portion, the 

 yellow ethereal portion now showing the four-banded spectrum as 

 before. This colouring matter causing obscuration no doubt belongs 

 to the lichnoxanthine group of Sorby,* and corresponds to the so- 

 called xanthophyll of Tschirch.f These yellow solutions deposit on 

 spontaneous evaporation an amorphous substance impregnated with 

 much fatty matter, which so far I have failed to remove and have been 

 unable to get in a crystalline form. It is insoluble in water, but easily 

 soluble in alcohol and ether, giving as before the distinctive spectrum 

 of four absorption bands in the violet and ultra-violet, but no bands in 

 the red, yellow, or green ; these bands, with the exception of the first, 

 which is almost if not quite identical in position with the first band 

 shown by crude chlorophyll solutions in the violet region, are in distinctly 

 different positions to the two remaining chlorophyll bands, or the three 

 due to chrysophyll (figs. 1 to 5). It appears to be much more stable 

 than chlorophyll, resisting the action of light and air to a greater 

 extent ; even from crude chlorophyll solutions which have been kept 

 for some time and show distinctly from their spectra the formation of 

 phyllocyanin, it can be obtained unaltered by the action of animal 

 charcoal. The solutions, when exposed to sunlight, gradually become 

 colourless, but at a less rapid rate than those of chrysophyll, and appa- 

 rently without the formation of products of decomposition) as is the 

 * ' Koy. Soc. Proc.,' vol". 21, p. 462. 



f 'Ber. der Deutscli. Bot. Ges.,' vol. 14, part 2. p. 76. 1S96. 

 VOL. LXV. P 



