Adipocelluloses and Cutocelluloses 235 



cesses. The importance of these constituents as auxiliaries to 

 the spinning qualities of the fibre lends the additional technical 

 interest to the results of such researches ; and more generally 

 the special functions of the adipocelluloses in protecting the 

 tissues beneath them from penetration by water point to the 

 desirability of adapting the artificial processes of waterproof- 

 ing (cellulose) textiles to the lines laid down by the natural 

 process. 



These observations bring us to the close of a brief notice of 

 this third group of compound celluloses. The brevity of the 

 treatment is the expression of the very small amount of research 

 which has been devoted to the subject. There are many 

 scattered references to particular products isolated from vege- 

 table tissues by treatment with * fat and wax ' solvents. But a 

 description of these falls outside the scope of the present 

 treatise, which is confined to the treatment of tissue-con- 

 stituents, with such incidental references to adventitious or 

 excreted products as appear to be genetically connected with 

 the tissue in which they are found. 



From this point of view it appears to be established, by 

 similarity of constitution, that the oils and waxes found in the 

 free state in association with the adipocelluloses are closely 

 related to the non-cellulose constituents of the latter ; and that 

 they are either degradation products of the latter, or both have 

 a common origin in some anterior form. It is this important 

 physiological problem which future researches must solve. 



General View of the Cellulose Group. The elabora- 

 tion of the compounds which constitute the subject-matter of 

 this treatise is, in point of mass-effect, by far the main work of 

 the vegetable kingdom. The functions of these compounds in 

 plant life are obviously in part structural or mechanical, in 

 part chemical. The cellular tissue of the plant being regarded 



