Mc?noir on Gluten. fy 



by the French chemifts, has been, that crude iron was the 

 metal imperfectly reduced, but that the latter was iron per- 

 fectly reduced, combined with a (mail portion of carbon. 

 The fact, however, of malleable iron pafling into the ftate of 

 fine crude 'iron without the contact of an oxygenous body, 

 puts it upon a fimilar footing with fteel, only altered by a 

 greater comparative quantity of carbon. This reduces us to 

 the neceflity of drawing one of the two following conclu- 

 fions : that fteel is, equally as crude iron, a combination of 

 iron, carbon, and oxygen ; or, that crude iron differs from 

 fteel only in the proportion of the carbon with which it is 

 faturate'd. — The communication which fhali be forwarded 

 for the next number of the Magazine, will, I hope, leave 

 little doubt upon this head. 



IT. M-emoir on Gluten. By Charles Louis Cadet, of 



the College of Pharmacy, Paris *. 



JL HE chemifts who have made refearches in regard to 

 the glutinous principle of vegetables, and particularly that of 

 wheat, have found no folvcnts of that matter but weak acids 

 and cauftic alkalies. When the gluten indeed is frefh, thefe 

 two kinds of re-agents only have the power of diflblving it; 

 but, however, by altering it, that is to fay, by taking from it 

 the agglutinative property. Thefe folutions have not vet af- 

 forded any application ui'eful to the arts; and gluten itrelf, in 

 its natural ftate, has been employed only to cement broken 

 china; but, when gluten has experienced a commencement 

 of fermentation in damp air, its folubility is increafed, as I 

 proved by the following experiments : 



I put into an earthen veflel about three hectogrammes of 

 gluten extracted from wheat in the ufual manner. This 

 velTel was placed in a damp hot-bed : at the end of feven or 

 eight days the furface of the gluten became brown, and co- 

 vered with white by/Jus fimilar to that which vegetates on 

 ripening fruit. I removed this byiTus, and continued to ob- 

 ferve the alteration of the gluten : on the fifteenth day the 

 mafs appeared to increafe in volume; fome gafeous bubbles 

 railed up the furface, and an acetous odour manifefted itfelf: 

 on prefling the gluten a little, there ifTued from it a milky 

 acid liquor. On the twenty-fifth day the odour was ftronger, 

 but always acefcent ; and, on removing the fort of (kin which 

 was formed on the pafte, the foftened gluten had become 



** From the Annates de Cbimic, No. 123. 



vifcid, 



