308          ON THE  CHANGE  OF KEFKANGIBILITY  OF  LIGHT.
examined by the second method, it was found that the yellow dispersion was produced principally by the brightest part of the spectrum. After a considerable time the fluid lost its fine green colour, as is very often the case with solutions of leaf-green, and became yellowish brown, but the red and yellow dispersions still continued.
When the fluid was examined by the fourth method, it was found that the red rays dispersed a red, just as in a solution of leaf-green. The additional dispersion which was so conspicuous in this fluid began almost abruptly about the fixed line I). When it was first observed, the refrangibility of the orange dispersed light could hardly, if at all, be separated from that of the active light. As the lens moved on, the orange beam rapidly grew brighter, and yellow entered into it; and now it was easy to see that the beam of falsely dispersed light lay at its more refrangible limit. The orange and yellow dispersed beam was brightest at about Df E; but though it decreased in intensity it could be traced far beyond that point, in fact, throughout the spectrum.
63. I have generally found that when a copious dispersion commences almost abruptly at a certain point of the spectrum, it is followed by a band of absorption in the transmitted light. This law did not seem applicable to the orange dispersion exhibited by the solution just mentioned; but then it is to be remembered that the solution contained a quantity of chlorophyll, which produces absorption bands with such energy that it would naturally mask the bands which might be due to another colouring principle with which it was mixed. To try whether the law would be obeyed if the chlorophyll were got rid of, I boiled in water some portions of the root and young shoots which had turned blue, chlorophyll being insoluble in water. The solution thus obtained was red, in small thicknesses pink, and dispersed copiously a yellow or rather orange light. On subjecting the fluid to prismatic analysis, a band of absorption was seen at the place expected. Since aqueous solutions of this nature are liable to decomposition, frequently decomposing before sunlight can be obtained by which to examine them, the red solution was concentrated by evaporation and purified by alcohol, in which the orange-dispersing principle is soluble, as had already