300 THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS. 



after having been fed alike, he says that only our experiment 

 No. 1 is admissible for calculation, because it is only in that 

 case that the initial and final composition was determined 

 in parallel animals. He, in fact, accepts our least conclusive 

 result, obtained with food abnormally rich in nitrogenous 

 substance, and repudiates our most conclusive experiments 

 with appropriate fattening food. Accordingly he maintains 

 that we had only shown the probability of the formation of 

 fat from the carbohydrates, and that his own results as above 

 were the first to prove it. 



The discussion of the results of the nine experiments 

 recorded in Table 70 must have sufficed to show that in some 

 of them a very large proportion of the fat of the increase must 

 have been produced from the carbohydrates. The mode of 

 calculation adopted showed, however, a maximum amount of 

 the fat of the increase to have been possibly derivable from 

 fatty matter in the food, a maximum amount of the nitrogen- 

 ous substance of the food to be available for fat-formation, 

 and a maximum amount producible from a given amount of 

 nitrogenous substance ; and hence a minimum amount neces- 

 sarily derived from carbohydrates. But, as the results so 

 calculated, and discussed with due reservation on these 

 points, are those upon which we have for so many years 

 maintained that the formation of fat from the carbohydrates 

 has been proved, and as it is those results, and the conclusions 

 drawn from them, that have instigated so much subsequent 

 investigation leading to the confirmation of our views, it 

 seemed desirable prominently to direct attention to the evi- 

 dence as so brought out. 



We have, however, as already said, long ago re-calculated 

 many of our feeding experiments, making allowance, as far as 

 practicable, for the probable amount of indigestible and neces- 

 sarily effete matters of the foods. We have also, as referred 

 to at pp. 280-283, arranged tables founded on our direct analy- 

 tical results on the ten animals, showing the probable average 

 percentage composition of the different descriptions of animal, 

 each at eight gradationary points from the store to the very 

 fat condition, and have applied the factors thus obtained, not 

 only for the calculation of the composition of the increase 

 in a number of cases of ordinary practice, and of direct 

 experiment, but also for the re-calculation of some of the 

 results to which Table 70 relates. Accordingly, in the 

 Table 71 next Table (71) are given the results obtained in experi- 

 expiained. men t N a ^ w hich were inconclusive according to the orig- 

 inal mode of calculation, and also those obtained in experi- 

 ments 4 and 5., which, even as originally calculated, could 



