ON BICOLLOIDS AND CELL MASSES. v5 



lating action of neutral salts upon plasmatic colloids by Tadokoro 

 furnish' some important collateral conclusions. Tadokoi'o found 

 that all chlorides of aluminium, barium, strontium, calcium and 

 magnesium cause coagulation of plasmatic colloids in an increasing 

 series in the order given in concentrations from AV200 to N, 10, 

 and that KCl exerted a stronger action than NaCl. Many profitable 

 comparisons may be made between the results of his tests of the 

 action of salts upon crushed galls and of the swelling reactions of 

 biocoUoids given in the present paper.^ Furthermore both afford 

 many parallels with the swelling reactions which were obtained by 

 the extension of my experiments to include the measurement of the 

 action of the salts, particularly the chlorides, upon living and dead 

 cell-masses. 



The first material tested was taken from the large " prop " roots 

 of corn plants a meter in height growing in the garden at Carmel. 

 Root-hairs were only sparingly developed on a terminal section 3 to 

 5 cm. long, and sections 4 or 5 mm. in length including the tip were 

 taken and freed as completely as possible from particles adherent 

 from the loose sandy soil in which they grew. The average thick- 

 ness of trios placed under the auxograph ranged from 2 to 2.5 cm. 

 Such sections dried down to thickness of 0.3 to 0.4 mm. when placed 

 between sheets of blotting paper. 



Such sections of living material made practically all of the 

 changes in volume indicated within eight to fifteen minutes, the 

 speediest action taking place in the acid and the slowest recorded 

 being in the potassium solution, although this matter is partly a 

 function of the size or length of the sections. In illustration of the 

 swelling and shrinkage it may be cited that in the acid the sections 

 return to normal size in about 2 hours. Shrinkage to original thick- 

 ness may in some cases take place within a day, although twice this 

 period elapses in other instances. 



The results of the auxographic measurements are given as aver- 

 age percentages of original thickness in Table IX. 



If the facts in this table are taken for comparison with those 



^ Tadokoro, T., '' Kolloidchemische Forschungen ueber das Pflanzen- 

 plasma," Jour. Coll. of Agric, Hokkaido Imp. Univ., Sapporo, Japan, 7: 

 part 5, 144-182. 1919. 



