348 THE MICROSCOPE. 



that the diseased potatoes contain a larger proportion of 

 water than those that are healthy. A want of organizing 

 power is evidently the cause of this deficiency of starch ; 

 but we fear the microscope will never tell us in what the 

 want of this organising force consists." l 



The adulteration of articles of food and drink has long 

 been a matter of uneasy interest, and of strong, though 

 vague, misgiving. Accum's Death in the Pot, between 

 thirty and forty years ago, awoke attention to the subject; 

 which has since been more or less accurately explored by 



Fig. 193. Sample of Coffee, adulterated with both Chicory and Roasted 

 Wheat. (AfterHassall.) 



a a a, small fragments of coffee ; b b b, portions of chicory ; ccc, starch-granules 

 of wheat. 



Mitchell, Normandy, Chevalier, Jules Gamier, and Harel; 

 and has at length derived a singularly lucid exposi- 

 tion from Dr. Hassall's researches, whose report of these 

 inquiries fills between 600 and 700 closely printed pages 



(1) Professor Quekett's Histology of Vegetablts. We would refer the reader 

 to a curious work on Fungi, by Arimini, an Italian botanist, 1759. 



