358 KrirKwoop AND GIES: CHEMICAL STUDIES 
matter from the fluid in the husk—possibly also organic substance 
from the disintegrating husk fibers—and thus they absorb new 
nourishment from a large supply. Growth of the plumule is conse- 
quently favored. The plumule soon reaches such a height and 
development as to enable it to make increasing contributions to 
the plant metabolism from the gaseous products the air affords. 
By this time the whole growth has become practically independent 
of the reserve material of the seed. 
EnzyMes.—We made only a few preliminary studies of enzyme 
distribution. Extracts were made in water, dilute salt solution 
and glycerin. The indicators used in nearly all the experiments 
were prepared from the materials in the nut itself. 
The extracts of the cotyledon were acid to litmus (phosphates), 
though, as indicated by lacmoid, they contained no free acid. 
Diastatic ferment was found to be distributed in abundance in all 
parts of the cotyledon. Oxidase wasalso present. Only the very 
slightest proteolytic action was manifested by the cotyledon ex- 
tracts, even when they were obtained in particularly concentrated 
form. In some experiments the results were entirely negative, how- 
ever. Cellulose-dissolving and fat-splitting enzymes were not 
detected in either the cotyledon or the residual endosperm, al- 
though we cannot be sure that in our few experiments they have 
not escaped us.* Germination progresses so slowly that possibly 
some of the enzymes are present in only very minute quantity at 
any one time—in such amount, perhaps, as to be undiscoverable 
by the methods commonly employed for ferment detection. We 
did not examine the parts of the plumule in this connection. 
At this point, before we were able to come to any very definite 
conclusions as to the enzymes present and before we could de- 
termine the distribution of proteids, fats, carbohydrates, etc., in the 
parts of the plant, we were obliged to discontinue our work. The 
writer hopes to extend these experiments on the germinated cocoa- 
nut to a consideration of related problems of nutrition. 
