New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 281 



To determine more definitely the point as to whether certain 

 nucleic acids are so easily split up as our results indicated, we 

 made preparations of these bodies from wheat bran and fresh corn 

 g-erm meal. That from wheat bran was separated by Osborne's 

 method (i> and gave a product extremely low in phosphorus, — less 

 than I per ct. — and high in proteid matter. The filtrate from the 

 pepsin digestion — a part of the Osborne method — showed an 

 abundance of an easily cleavable organic phosphorus combina- 

 tion. This is in harmony with our other results, that the nucleins 

 or salts of nucleic acid of wheat bran are extremely soluble in 

 dilute acid solutions. 



By Levene's method (2> we separated from wheat bran a nucleic 

 acid carrying 7.59 per ct. of phosphorus and from fresh germ 

 meal one containing 6.83 per ct. Both these products were 

 soluble in water, yielding pale yellow solutions. When dissolved 

 in water and tested as in the above method for the estimation 

 of inorganic phosphorus, that is, with 50 cc. molybdic solution at 

 65° C. in the presence of ammonium nitrate, a flocculent precipi- 

 tate first separates. This soon takes on a yellow color and the 

 ammonium phospho-molybdate settles out. 



It became apparent that a method estimating, at least approxi- 

 mately, the amount of inorganic phosphorus in our feeding mate- 

 rials and animal by-products, must take into account the amount 

 of free acid in the precipitating reagent. With this point in view 

 we first established the amount of nitric acid necessary to separate 

 quantitatively ammonium phospho-molybdate when neutral am- 

 monium molybdate was added to a neutral solution of inorganic 

 phosphorus. We found that 2 cc. of nitric acid (sp. gr. 1.20) in 

 225 cc. of solution would cause quantitative separation in water 

 extracts and in extracts made with 0.2 per ct. hydrochloric and 

 neutralized with ammonia. In the i per ct. acetic acid extracts, 

 neutralized with ammonia 4 cc. of 1.20 nitric acid is necessary 

 because of the retarding action of the ammonium acetate on the 

 separate of ammonium phospho-molybdate. 10 grams of am- 

 monium nitrate was added to the above volume. Neutral am- 



(A) Annual Report Conn. Agr. Exp. Station, 1901. 

 (2) Jour. Amer. Cheni. Soc. 22: 239 (1900). 



