Gum, Siigar, ar.danAcidy lymeans of Sulphuric Acid^^c. 121 



culatious are told that a pound weight of rags can be converted 

 into more than a pound of sugar, they may regard the statement 

 as a piece of pleasaiitrv, though nothing can be more real. 



It appears to me, that from the conversion of wood into gum 

 and sugar, some important consequences may be deduced, which 

 may throw light on many obscure points of vegetation. In fact, 

 since the observation seems to indicate that woods consist of 

 gum or mucilage with less of oxygen and hydrogen than the pro- 

 portions necessary to make water, we can, by remounting to the 

 origin of the formation of ligneous matter, appreciate the means 

 which nature puts in operation to create it. If we examine it a 

 little before its birth, we see that it presents the form of a muci- 

 lage containing some small white grains which appear to be a 

 first germ of wood : this mucosity, on account of the important 

 part which it acts in vegetation, has received the name of the 

 organizing stihstance or Cambium de Dufiamel. Aided by the 

 vital influence, this substance appears to abandon by little and 

 little a part of the elements of water, to form first the cortical 

 beds, the sap, the parenchyma; and at last the wood, properly 

 so called, which must be extremely variable in the proportion of 

 its principles, according as it is of new or old formation. This 

 manner of viewing the transformation of cambium into wood, 

 appears to be probable enough, when it is considered that we 

 can retrograde the latter to its primitive state of mucilage. It 

 is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that wood often con- 

 cretes in great abundance in the heart of mucous and sugary mat- 

 ter, as we see in nuts, in ligneous concretions of pears, &c. It 

 may be further observed, that the death of the vegetable does net 

 put an end to this subtraction of oxygen and hydrogen ; it con- 

 tinues to take place in all the different states through which the 

 ligneous matter passes, till it is at length entirely destroyed. 



Of the Vegeto- Sulphuric Add. 



We have said that after having saturated a solution of the acid 

 mucilage formed by the action of sulphuric acid upon linen vvitii 

 the oxide of lead, exposed to a long continued heat, there was 

 formed sugar, and an acid of a particular nature, which we se- 

 parated by rectified alcohol in which it was dissolved. This al- 

 coholic liquor, however, retains also some sugar. I evaporated it 

 ;o the consistence of a syrup, and agitated it with ether, which 

 took a slight straw colour, and left after its evaporation an al- 

 most colourless acid, very sharp, almost caustic, and setting the 

 teeth on edge. This acid is deliquescent, uncrystalli/ablc, and 

 attracts the humidity from the air. It gradually became brown 

 in tlic air when ubove mean temperature. Tut into a capsule 



plunged 



