p Se7b*. j 
LXXIV. On the’ Quantity of ligneous Matter which exists in 
some Roots and Fruits. Read to the Philomathic Society by 
M., CLement*. 
I AM about to communicate to the Society an observation which 
will not perhaps be without interest, because it adds something 
to our knowledge of the wonderful organization of living beings, 
and because it may not be without utility to some of the arts. 
It has been generally supposed that the ligneous matter of 
some roots and some fruits which serve for our nourishment, such 
as potatoes, carrots, beet-root, apples and pears, form a consi- 
derable part of their mass,—a fourth or a fifth, for instance. 
The husks remaining after all the cyder has been expressed 
from the apples, and (as a celebrated chemist (M. Chaptal) has 
recently informed us) the husks of beet-root, are quite well 
adapted to the nourishment of animals. Nevertheless it is suf- 
ficient to regard the husks of beet-roots with the slightest at- 
tention, to see that they are merely formed of small pieces of 
beet-root perfectly similar to those obtained by cutting and 
chipping the beet-root when whole with a very sharp instru- 
ment, and without allowing a single drop of liquid to escape, 
Jt is impossible not to ascertain in an instant this perfect re- 
semblance, which strikes the eye, and which is besides confirmed 
by experience. 
I cut a piece of beet-root into thin slices, and the latter were 
divided and hacked nearly to the same degree with the husks 
remaining after the manufacture of sugar, and which yielded 
66 per cent. of juice. Nevertheless the beet-root thus cut did 
not furnish any liquid on being pressed; and after being dried in 
the sun it was found to have lost 88 per cent. of its weight, 7. e. 
precisely as much as the husks dried in the same way. 
Thus it is a great and mischievous error to imagine that the 
mask of beet-roots thrown away in the fabrication of sugar is a 
substance almost dry: it contains as much water as the entire 
beet-root (as comparative desiccation proves), and as much 
sugar.as the first juice extracts; a greater mechanical division 
throws the whole into the liquid state. We might therefore, 
in the ease in which the manufacture of beet-root sugar is con- 
venient, seek with a certainty of success for the means of em- 
ploying in the production of sugar that considerable portion of 
the root which forms about one-third of it, and which has been 
supposed so erroneously to be almost entirely composed of dry 
substances, 
* Annales de Chimie et de Physique, tome i. p, 173. Feb. 1816. F 
_ + By ligneous matter, f mean that substance analogous to wood, which 
forms the solid network of plants or fruits. 
Aa2 What 
