136 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 
a portion of our demonstrated knowledge, and ether waves 
from a few feet to thousands of miles in length are believed 
to have been recognised. 
All this may well fill us with the belief, not only that 
Nature's fertility of resource is imexhaustible, but that 
Nature scarcely places limits to the possibilities of scientific 
discovery, or to the width and depth of human knowledge. 
SUB-SECTION B. 
BACTERIOLOGY AND FERMENTATION. 
THE MICRO-ORGANISMS AND THEIR 
APPLICATIONS IN THE INDUSTRIES. 
By R. Greic Smits, M.Sc., Macleay Bacteriologist to the 
Linnean Society of New South Wales. 
InpusTRIAL bacteriology or mycology treats chiefly of the 
changes that are effected in such carbohydrates as starch and 
sugar by various yeasts, moulds, and bacteria. In less 
degree, it deals with the fermentation of albuminoids, the 
growth of yeasts, moulds, and bacteria for the production of 
trade cultures, the preparation of toxines, and the manufac- 
ture of antitoxines and protective sera. 
Ferments and Fermentation. 
Before proceeding to consider in detail the various applica- 
tions of bacteriology, it will be well to understand the 
meaning of fermentation. The old idea of formed and 
formless ferments has had its day, and the discovery of 
zymase, the alcoholic ferment, showed the folly of attribut- 
ing fermentative action to protoplasm simply because we 
did not know how to separate its active products, the 
enzymes. Protoplasm produces the enzymes which do the 
work. As a rule, the fermentation of any simple or com- 
plex organic chemical substance is referred to the micro 
organisms themselves, mstead of to the enzymes which they 
secrete. This is done only for the sake of simplicity ; and 
if we should so refer to the yeasts or bacteria, let us not 
forget that fermentation is a change brought about by the 
action of enzymes, and that the term “ferment” now applies 
to the enzyme, and not to the micro-organism. The organic 
ferments or enzymes are bodies of unknown more or less 
complicated constitution. Zymase, the alcoholic ferment, 
approaches nearer to protoplasm in its reactions than the 
