V 



226 REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



MATHEMATICS. 



Morley, Frank, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Grant 

 No. 558. The application of Cremona groups to the solution of alge- 

 braic equations. $1,000 



Professor Morley reports that a memoir by Prof. A. B. Coble, called "The 

 reduction of a sextic equation to the Valentiner Form-problem," has been 

 accepted by Professor Klein and will appear in the Mathematische Annalen. 

 This bears directly on the subject of the grant, and a further memoir by Dr. 

 Coble w^ill be submitted later. 



A memoir by Dr. J. R. Conner, on "The norm-curve in four dimensions," 

 is completed. This was a matter taken up in connection with the proposed 

 problem. 



NUTRITION. 



Osborne, T. B., Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, 

 Conn. Grant No. 573. Comparative study of the more important vege- 

 table proteins. (For previous reports see Year Books Nos. 3-8.) $5,000 



Grant 575 ($5,000). — A large part of the work done under this grant has 

 been directed to determine the nature of the deficit shown by even the most 

 successful protein analyses. It has been found that a large part of this deficit 

 is caused by defects in the analytical methods, losses occurring through incom- 

 plete hydrolysis of the protein ; through secondary decompositions during the 

 hydrolysis leading to the formation of humin ; through incomplete esterifica- 

 tion and extraction of the esters ; through condensation of the esters during 

 distillation ; and through imperfect separation of the individual amino-acids 

 by fractional crystallization. Although it has long been known that losses 

 were thus caused, it appears that few if any realized that in the aggregate 

 these were so large as we have found them to be. 



The yield of some of the amino-acids is materially increased by longer 

 hydrolysis, and it is necessary to boil the protein with strong acids for a very 

 much longer time than has heretofore been the practice. 



The formation of humin is almost certainly limited to secondary decompo- 

 sition of histidine, tryptophane, and carbohydrate, since zein, which yields 

 none of the latter two and only a very small amount of histidine, yields but 

 a trace of black amorphous substance known as humin. 



The losses which occur through incomplete esterification appear to be small 

 if this process is properly conducted, but the conduct of this operation is 

 simplified and expedited by applying a method proposed by Phelps and 

 Phelps for esterifying organic acids. The losses incident to extracting the 

 esters with ether can be reduced to an unimportant amount by repeating this 

 process a sufficient number of times. 



