66 
OBSERVATIONS ON ASPARAGINE. 
to itself, deposited a mass of crystals of the substance in 
question. The evaporated mother-liquors afforded a fresh 
crop of crystals. The substance was brown, and weighed 
about 340 grms. Purified by repeated crystallizations and 
by means of animal charcoal, it gave definitely 150 grms. of 
a perfectly crystallized white matter, in the form of prisma- 
tic crystals, similar to those of sugar candy. 
The characters of this body, and especially the facility 
with which it disengaged ammonia under the influence of 
alkalies, led me to suspect its identity with asparagine, 
which was confirmed by analysis. I obtained — 
Carbon - 31.80 
Hydrogen - 6.85 
Nitrogen - 42.54 
Oxygen - 18.80 
The purity of the product thus obtained, its abundance, 
and the simple means of extracting it, lead me to think that 
the method of preparation just described will hereafter be 
adopted by chemists as preferable to every other. Indepen- 
dent of the discovery of this new source of asparagine, 
there are some important questions of chemical physiology 
connected with the experiment which I have described. 
We may ask, — 1st, if the absence of light is indispensable 
to the production of asparagine ; second if the asparagine 
pre-exists in the seed, or whether it is produced during the 
act of germination ; 3d, what part asparagine performs in 
the economy of the plant. 
It was in the hope of throwing some light on these ques- 
tions that I undertook the investigations, the principal re- 
sults of which are the subject of this notice, I treated some 
seed and some plants arising from the germination of these 
under the influence of light, by a process analogous to that 
which has been described. The seed did not supply the 
least trace of asparagine ;. the plants, on the contrary, give 
it in abundance. Lastly, I submitted some plants, gather- 
ed at the period of flowering and fructification, to the same 
