Physiologie. — Palaeontologie. 37 



or (2) indirectly as determining obscure but essential physical or 

 Chemical conditions of a catalytic or antidotal character. In all the 

 abnormal nutritive conditions the living protoplasm never showed 

 any morphological changes; only the non-living parts, cell- wall, 

 starch, etc., were visibly modified. F. F. Blackman. 



Vines, S. H., The Proteases of Plants (V). (Annais of Botany. 

 Vol. XXII, p. 103—113. 1908.) 



The author finds that oily seeds {Cannabis in particular) give 

 much more active proteases than the starchy seeds worked on 

 previously. 



Autolysis of crushed resting seeds proceeded actively, and the 

 mixture was able to digest fibrin so that both peptonizing and pepto- 

 lyzing enzymes are present. It was found that 'i^/g sodium Chloride 

 Solution gave a' more powerful peptonizing extract than did distilled 

 water under the same conditions : only part of this effect was due 

 to an activating action of the Na Cl. Watery extracts were, on the 

 other hand, more peptolytic than the salt extracts. This suggested 

 a possible Separation of the two types of proteases which was ulti- 

 mately achieved as follows. 



An extract of Hemp-seed was made with IOWq Na Cl. On acidi- 

 fying with acetic acid the proteids were abundantly precipitated : 

 the filtrate peptolyzed actively but had no action on tibrin. The 

 precipitate of proteid had carried down all the fibrin-digesting Pro- 

 tease after washing out all traces of the peptolytic enzyme with 

 acidified salt-solution the precipitated proteids were extracted with 

 distilled water and this Solution digested fibrin actively but had no 

 peptolytic action (it gave no tryptophane reaction after mixing with 

 Witte-peptone). 



This is the first time "a vegetable pepsin" has been satisfactorily 

 isolated. F. F. Blackman. 



Gavelin, A., Studier öfver de postglaciala nivn-och klima- 

 förandringarna pä norra delen af det Smäländska hög- 

 landet. (Sveriges Geologiska Undersökning. Ser. C. N<^. 204. Mit 

 3 Karten und 6 Textfiguren. 66 S. Stockholm 1907.) 



In seinen grundlegenden Arbeiten über die Niveauveränderun- 

 gen Skandinaviens in der Quartärperiode hat G. de Geer auch 

 die durch die ungleichförmige Landhebung bewirkten Verschiebun- 

 gen der Wassermassen in den Binnenseeen hervorgehoben. Um 

 diese Veränderungen näher zu studieren, hat Verf. ein kleineres, 

 auf dem Smäländischen Hochlande oberhalb der marinen Grenze 

 gelegenes Seegebiet näher untersucht und kommt durch Studium 

 der alten Strandgebilde und der Moore zu folgenden Schlüssen be- 

 züglich der Entwicklungsgeschichte dieses Gebietes. 



In der Abschmelzungsperiode des Landeises wurden die nord- 

 wärts fliessenden Gewässer von dem zurückweichenden Eisrande 

 aufgestaut und bildeten grössere und kleinere Seeen, deren durch 

 Strandgebilde markierten Ufer hoch über dem Spiegel der heutigen 

 Seeen und Flüsse liegen. 



Näher an den heute südwärts abfliessenden Seeen finden sich 

 häufig Strandgebilde, die sich am Südende derselben oft mit den 

 heutigen Ufern decken, im Norden aber höher als diese liegen. Sie 



