HAVING had oocasion to extract some pounds of freshly ground whole oats with petroleum spirit and, with the exception of a paper by Stellwaag,* being unable to find in the chemical literature on oils anything very definite as to the characteristics of the oil, advantage was taken of this opportunity for recording them. The variety used was " Black Tartary," grown on a Fen farm near Peterborough. I t yielded 4.32 per cent. of petroleum spirit extraot, calculated on the dry sample. The whole oats

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... were dried to a moisture content of about 4 per cent. at 36O C. in a fruit-drying closet, ground, and extraated by percolation under pressure with hot petroleum spirit of boiling-point 4Oo-7O0 C., as long as any appreciable extract was obtained. A bright filtrate wag obtained from the spirit extract with the aid of a mixture of kaolin and kieselguhr. On distilling off the solvent and partially drying the residue on a water-bath, it was found that this residue, previously liquid, had become semi-solid owing to the separation of a light brown granular mass, which proved to consist largely, if not entirely, of lecithins. In order to get rid of this, the whole mass was dissolved in dried ether and poured into excess of aoetone, the lecithide being thus reprecipitated as a dirty white granular precipitate, which was filtered off by suction and proved to contain nitrogen and phosphorus ; when dry and fat-free it only amounted to about 1 per cent. of the total extract. The oil obtained by evaporation of the filtrate on a water-bath until constant in weight was a clear yellow-green fluid at ordinary temperatures, becoming thick and granular at 10' C., and solidifying completely in twenty-four hours at 5 O 0.; it had a marked acrid and irritating taste. The oonstants of this oil are tabulated below, together with those obtained by Stellwaag on a filtered ether extract not otherwise treated for the separation of lecithins. Ktinig states that the ether extraot of oats consists chiefly of free fatty acids While this work was in progress a comprehensive =tiole by R. A. Berry * on gats, including some particulars about the oil, appeared. The main points of interest in thirr oonneotion are that, according to Berry, the free fatty acids in the oil from freshly ground oatmeal are negligible, but that hydrolysis of the oil occurs to an extent depending upon the time elapsing between the grinding and the extraction, and that the effect of drying is to decrease the rate of hydrolysis, but not to prevent it. Although no special precautions were M e n to guard against hydrolysis or oxidation during extraction, it seems unl!ksly that free acid to the extent of over onethird of the total extract could-have been produced in this way; it seems more probable that, even in the fresh oat, the true fatty matter is associated with a considerable amount of free fatty acid.