1895 THE MICROSCOPE. 109 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Eye of Beetle for Multiple Image. — Have a diffuse side- 

 light (window with sky or lamp with white porcelain shade 

 between flame and mirrow). .Use plane mirror and small aper- 

 ture of diaphragm. Focus on the piece of cornea ; then with ' 

 one hand held about three feet from the mirror toward the light, 

 with fingers spread and in motion and with the other hand on 

 the fine^ adjustment, slowly draw the objective back from the 

 slide, watching the facets of the cornea until hundreds of tiny 

 hands are seen. After you have learned how to do it, anything 

 may be substituted for the hand. A profile-face against the sky, 

 a house in bright sunlight, etc. They will not be right side up, 

 owing to reversal informing the images. — P. M. Club. 



Starch. — This is one of the substances produced by an active- 

 ly growing plant, and, like the fat tissue in an animal, it is 

 stored up for future use. The grains are spherical when 5- oung 

 but growth being not always uniform, the form becomes ovoid, 

 or of some other figure. When packed away closely, as in the 

 small cereals, wheat, oats, rice, etc., the grains become many- 

 angled by mutual pressure. In the potato the starch grain, at- 

 tached to the starch-forming corpuscle by one margin, absorbes 

 nutrient sap much as a sponge might absorbe nutrient fluid, and 

 the starchy elements are deposited in greater abundance at the 

 attached (or broad) margin, producing an excentric or one-sided 

 growth, the hilum or narrow end being the distant portion. 



Starch grains always occur in all stages of development, and 

 consequently vary greatly in size in the same plant. 



Starch, chemically and morphologically, is nearly the same 

 as cellulose. It is a carbo-hydrate. Weak alkalies or acids cause 

 it to become soluble. When it is to become re-absorbed for use 

 in the plant economy, it is in most cases converted into sugar 

 or dextrine, by some of the plant ferment, but occasionally it is 

 only partially dissolved, broken down, and may be detected as 

 starch, in the sap, before assimilation. 



Starch when heated to about 400° F. changes into soluble 

 dextrine. 



Malting is practically the forcing of germination until the 

 root point is protruded about one-third the diameter of the 



