[MACFARLANE] ESTIMATION OF STARCH 21 
This scheme of proximate organic analysis has not yet been worked 
out in all its details ; indeed it will require much time and labour to do 
so, but the following results may be given for the purpose of showing the 
possibilities of the plan suggested : 


Residue 




| les | 
Moisture. Fat. | han a DA Starch. EE em 
Wheatilour-- #7"... | 12°48 0° 0°40 6°04 69°00 11:08 
Oatmeal. ois. «5: 1) 28:60) SIG | 6°32 3°96 | 56°12 21°84 
Patent barley......... ily Capp. 0 0°72 4:36 | 70°72 12°48 
Peameales- "7... 12°88 0 6°28 868 | 43°40 28°76 
Indian cornmeal...... S96). |e: 5°92 3°32 | 63°76 17°04 
Ground rice.......... 12-60 | o | 000 384 | 70-04 13-52 
| | 
These figures roughly approximate the composition of the foods in 
question, but they also show defects as regards the estimation of some 
of the constituents, especially the fat. This is accounted for by the cir- 
cumstance that the drying was done in atmospheric air. The extrac- 
tion by ethyl-ether was omitted. With reference to the starch, how- 
ever, it will be seen that the figures approach pretty closely to the 
quantities which are usually supposed to exist in the flours in question. 
Regarding the estimation of the starch, I may mention the follow- 
ing details: After the tubes and their contents have been treated with 
cold water, dried and weighed, they are placed, eight at a time, in a 
copper rack. The rack is placed in water (contained in an enamelled 
basin) reaching up to the top of the tubes, and moistening their con- 
tents. The water is then heated up to 85° C., and the tubes kept in it 
one hour, in order to effect the gelatinization of the starch. The water 
is then poured off and repiaced by an infusion of malt containing three 
per cent of Parke, Davis & Co.’s Plain Malt Extract, and the digestion 
continued for several hours longer at a temperature varying from 
65° to 80° F. The tubes are then removed from the rack and the hot 
filtered malt infusion passed through them. After this their contents 
are further washed with hot water until the filtrate shows no indication 
of the presence of starch by iodine solution. As much water as possible 
is then removed from them over the filter-pump, when they are dried 
and weighed, the decrease from the previous weighing being taken as 
starch, 
It gives me much pleasure to be able to communicate the results 
obtained by Prof. E. B. Kenrick, one of our most talented official an- 
alysts, who undertook, at my request, to apply this new method to a 
series of samples of wheaten flour which had been collected in Manitoba 
