20 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
verted into dextrose, the acid neutralised by soda, and the solution either 
titrated by Fehling solution or polarised. After reviewing the results 
obtained Professor Stone says, “ The most hopeful way of avoiding these 
“ difficulties would seem to be some method of bringing the starch into 
“ solution, and removing it from its accompanying carbo-hydrates with- 
“out any corresponding influence upon them. One method seems to 
“offer this advantage, viz., the application of diastase or malt infusion 
“to the starch containing material.” Professor Stone shows that the 
malt infusion is without action on some of the other carbo-hydrates, and 
proposes after solution and separation from these to estimate the starch 
by inversion and titration. 
The method which I propose for ascertaining the percentage of 
starch differs from that preferred by Professor Stone only in avoiding 
the latter processes, and the estimation is made by weighing before and 
after the action of the malt extract, the difference being regarded as the 
amount of starch removed. 
The manner of carrying out this estimation is by means of cryso- 
tile fibre, which, as former papers have shown, has been found extremely 
useful in the operations of the Laboratory of the Inland Revenue Depart- 
ment. Its application in milk analysis was described by me before this 
section in May, 1887, and subsequently in December, 1892, I read a paper 
before the Society of Public Analysts in London (The Analyst, X VITI., 73) 
describing the use of crysotile fibre in the examination of butter, cheese, 
fats and oils, soaps, spirits and malt liquors, syrups, molasses and 
coffee. The latter article was the first in the examination of which it 
was found advantageous to envelop and diffuse it in crysotile fibre, 
while being acted on or extracted by various solvents. It was in the 
gradual development of the crysotile method that it occurred to me to 
attempt the treatment of wheat flour, and meals from other grains in a 
similar manner, removing their proximate constituents successively one 
after the other, and estimating their percentages by loss, in the same 
manner as is done in gas analysis. The succession of the solvents applied 
is mainly that long ago suggested by Willstein, and now prescribed by 
Dragendorff and others in the analysis of plants, and is given along 
with the constituents removed in the following statement : 


AGENT OR SOLVENT USED. CONSTITUENTS ESTIMATED. 
LE MID VN Oe OA. Reso as «Moho Ree nu Moisture 
2, (Retrolictether!. 222 besos cee ore coh servent Fats and oils 
ao eithyl-ethensee, Tree nae Hes Ss he ee Resins, &c. 
AEMICHONOP SD (SEO olceech Aapereene ee a cee ‘Sugars, &c. 
5 Cold water ..%)uials tes eee. \Gumeand dextrine 
GHMALL INMEUSION LEE so cients aan eos Starch 
Vauln Che residues: -aciccs oases Proteids, ash and fibre 
(Here explanations regarding the apparatus used were given.) 
