i r/oy. 541 



important fart that all ripening fruit, exposed to tin- five 

 ..-orbed tin- oxv^cn of thr at nmspherr ami 

 .'ed an approximately t-.jual volume of Out 

 so found that when ripe fruits ueie pla'-ed in a 

 lined almosphrrr. tin- ox\L r ni of thr at mo.-phen- 

 absorbed, and an equal volume of carbonic acid ui\en out. 

 But the p< i not en.l here. After tlie oxygen had 



vanished, carbonic arid, in eonsiderahle quant 

 tinned to he exhaled hy the fruits, which at the name lime 

 portion of their sugar, becoming more acid to the 

 taste, though the absolute quantity of acid was not 

 augmented. This was an observation of capital importance, 

 ';: i rd had the sagacity to remark that the process 

 mi^ht be regarded as a kind of fermentation. 



Tims tiie living cells of fruits can absorb oxygen and 

 breathe out carbonic acid, exactly like the living cells of 

 thr leaven of i. ipposing the access of oxygen sud- 



denly cut off, will the living fruit cells as suddenly die, or 

 will they continue to live as yeast lives, by extracting 

 oxygen fron the saccharine juices round them? This is a 

 >n of supreme theoretic significance. It was 

 tirat ansAvred atlirmatively by the able and conclusive 

 experiments of Lcrhartier and" Bellamy, and thr answer 

 iiieiitly confirmed and explained by the experi- 

 and the reason ing of Pasteur. Beiard only showed 

 thr absorption of oxygen and the production of carbonic 

 artirr and Bellamy proved the production of 

 alcohol, thus completing the evidence that it was a 



i fermentation, though the common alcoholic ferment 



was a! So full w; ir of the idea that the cells 



of the fruit would continue to live at the expense of the 



of the fruit, that once in his laboratory, while con- 



i these subjects with M. Dumas, he exclaimed, 



" I will wager that if a grapr be jiln n-rd into an atmos- 



of carbonic acid, it will produce alcohol and carbonic 



acid by the continued life of its own cells that the 



tinM like the cells of the true alcoholic leaven." 

 11' made the experiment, and found the result to be what 

 he had foreseen. !!< tii'-n extended the inquiry. 

 iiiLT under a bell-jar t wi-nt v-four plums, he tilled the jar 

 \\ith carbonic acid gas; beside it he pi. iced twenty-four 

 similar p. orered. At the end of 



> in ms from thr jar and compared them with 



