1835.] on Malt. 447 



must yield infinitely in importance to observations which 

 have been made upon grain preserved in the collections 

 of M. Passalacqua. That gentleman brought from the ruins 

 of Thebes, in Egypt, some grain, which, when examined 

 byD'Arcet, Vauquelin, Bailly, and Fontenelle, was found to 

 be slightly acid, and to contain its proper quantity of starch, 

 but no gluten. Raspail subsequently confirmed the accuracy 

 of these chemists. When Passalacqua sold his collection 

 of antiquities to the king of Prussia, Champollion found 

 between the limbs of a mummy (which he recognised as the 

 remains of Pharoah, son of Marsaroun Mainoute, or priest 

 of a great tribe attached to the worship of the goddess 

 Netpha, the Egyptian Rhea mother of Osiris and Isis,) a 

 small brown compact loaf, surrounding a number of grains 

 of barley, which had germinated and been slightly scorched. 

 These seeds, which must have been above 3000 years old, 

 were examined by M. Julia Fontenelle, who could detect 

 no gluten in them, but found that the starch, by its action 

 on iodine, was not impaired in its properties. A little 

 acid was also present, as was demonstrated by the re-action 

 on test-paper. 



When exposed to the air and moisture, however, starch 

 undergoes a remarkable change. M. Lassaigne examined 

 some wheat which was found in pulling down a house in 

 Paris, at the Quai de la Greve. It possessed a black colour,, 

 as if it had been converted into charcoal. It contained 

 neither starch nor gluten, but much ulmine or ulmic acid*. 

 The appearance of the grain led this chemist to believe that 

 it had been partially converted into coal, in a manner similar 

 to that in which trees and smaller vegetables have been 

 changed into coal, jet, and peat. Wheat found at Royat,, 

 near Clermont, (Auvergne) in the mountain called the 

 Granaries of Caesar, M. Lassaigne ascertained had under- 

 gone a similar change. 



The precise researches of Raspail enable us to com- 

 prehend in some measure the cause of this stability in the 

 nature of starch. According to him, starch consists of 

 grains which vary in form and dimensions, the diameters 

 not exceeding, in maturity, '00393 inch; but before they 

 have attained their full size, being exceedingly more 

 minute. Those of the Hordium vulgare are about *009& 

 inch in diameter. In each grain, when viewed under 



