38 ARTIFICIAL PARTHENOGENESIS AND FERTILIZATION 
normal oxidations in the sea-urchin egg. On the contrary, 
our experiments prove definitely that low concentrations of 
NaOH have practically no effect upon the rate of oxidations. 
All the facts become intelligible on the assumption that 
the increase in oxidations under the influence of high concen- 
trations of NaOH is due to an injurious (a kind of etching ?) 
effect of the latter; this would make it clear why the weak 
bases, such as NH,OH, do not produce an increase in the rate 
of oxidations and why low concentrations of NaOH have no 
effect either. The fact that NH,OH enters the egg, while 
NaOH does not, has probably nothing to do with this result. 
The energetics of development—the nature of the sub- 
stances which undergo oxidation, and the way the energy is 
utilized—has been investigated by Tangl' and his pupils, by 
Bohr and Hasselbalch,? and by Meyerhof.? Since the experi- 
ments on artificial parthenogenesis are not so intimately con- 
nected with these experiments as with those on oxidation, we 
may be pardoned for not discussing them in this book. 
1Tangl, Pfliiger’s Archiv, XCIII, 327; XCVIII, 490; CIV, 624; CXXI, 437; 
Biochem. Zeitschr., XLIV, 180, 1912. 
2 Skand. Arch., XIV, 398, 1903. 
3 Meyerhof, Biochem. Zeitschr., XXXV, 246, 1911. 
