Elephants, Cows and Monkeys It may help to understand the chromatographic process better if you imagine the chemical mixture (sample) to be sade up of elephants, monkeys, and cows. Let's imagine that there are 3 elephants, 4 cows, and 6 monkeys and that this mixture is pushed into a flowing river. Since the river is flowing and the animals are moving slong with it, we cal the Fiver the mobile phase.“The mixture of animals is cared along fo a mile or s0 wail it passes an island. Since the island is sanding +3 bile eee ows past i we call the island he ettionary phase. On one side ofthe island are banana plants, On he Uiher side are peanut plants, At the end ofthe island i a pasture of lush grass ‘As the motile phase (the river) passes around the stadonary phase (tbe island), the sample is atracted. he onkey mb out ofthe ive tat he tana, The ‘lepbants thea get out to eat the peanuts and the cows get oUt 10 eat the grass. Stationary Phase Islan(Once each group of animals eats its fill, they jump back into the river. But, because they re-enter the river at different times, the mixture that originally stated together has now been separated into three groups. [As the river passes beneath a bridge, someone on the bridge (the detector) records the time, identity, and quantity of ~~ each group (the chromatogram). ‘The analysis is now complete. Takays Cows