OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 106 



(5.) The round spores are alwajs two in number, one at each end 

 of the cell. 



From this subject Kern passes to his last topic, the power of re- 

 sistauce of the kephir-grains when subjected to external influences. 

 Drying does not seem to deprive them of life. They contract a 

 great deal, become dirty brown and hard as stone, so that they 

 have even been called " little stones " or " pebbles " by the inhab- 

 itants of the Caucasus district. In this dried state they are kept for 

 long periods of time, yet under suitable conditions they are always 

 ready to cause fermentation again. Kern himself kept some for two 

 months in his room. They were thoroughly desiccated, yet when 

 placed in milk agahi they became gradually white, and in a few days 

 could not be distinguished from fresh specimens. Under the micro- 

 scope the dried clumps show that the yeast cells suffer most, very 

 many being dead ; the Bacteria seem to suffer very little, since they 

 form spores. 



Having thus summarized Kern's paper rather fully because it bears 

 directly upon my subject, I am in position to describe an American 

 milk-ferment which I hope to show is almost, if not quite, identical with 

 the European kephir. The material which I studied consisted of two 

 sets of specimens placed in my hands by Professor Farlow of Har- 

 vard University, to whom they had been sent by Dr. George Thurber, 

 of Passaic, N. J., and Mr. J. Dearness, of London, Ontario. In both 

 cases the specimens were in the form of rather small granules, very 

 few being above a centimeter in diameter, of a dirty brown color, and 

 presenting on their surfaces numerous lobes and fissures, thus remind- 

 ing one of rather dirty gum-arabic. The material from Dr. Thurber 

 was received in 1 888, and at that time had already lain in a dried con- 

 dition in his herbarium for several years. The specimens from Mr. 

 Dearness, undistinguishable to the naked eye from those of Dr. Thur- 

 ber, were received in January, 1891, under the name of "California 

 bees' beer," with the note that " housekeepers through this country 

 (Ontario) keep a self-sealing jar of this Saccharomycete half filled or 

 more with sweetened water. The fermented product is drawn and 

 drunk for a tonic." 



The material from New Jersey and that from Ontario were prac- 

 tically identical in gross and microscopic characters, the Ontario grains 

 being as a rule somewhat smaller, and the following description ap- 

 plies to both of them. In my experiments on the action in fermenta- 

 tion I used principally the New Jersey material, which, in spite of the 

 long time it had been dried, revived when placed in a nutritive fluid. 



