HORDEUM DECORTICATUM. 723 



According to Bretschneider/ barley is included among the five 

 cereals which it is related in Chinese history were sowed by the Emperor 

 Shen-nung, who reigned about 2700 B.C.; but it is not one of the five 

 sorts of grain which are used at the ceremony of ploughing and sowing 

 as now annually performed by the emperors of China. 



Theophrastus was acquainted with several sorts of barley (KpiOi]), 

 and among them, with the six-rowed kind or hexastlchon, which is the 

 species that is represented on the coins struck at Metapontum- in 

 Lucania, between the 6th and 2nd centuries B.C. 



Strabo and Dioscorides in the 1st century allude to drinks made 

 from barley, which according to Tacitus were even then familiar to the 

 German tribes, as they are known to have been still earlier to the Greeks 

 and Egyptians. 



Barley is mentioned in the Bible as a plant of cultivation in Egypt 

 and Syria, and must have been, among the ancient Hebrews, an important 

 article of food, judging from the quantity allowed by Solomon to the 

 servants of Hiram, king of Tyre (B.C. 1015). The tribute of barley paid 

 to King Jotham by the Ammonites (B.C. 741) is also exactly recorded. 

 The ancients were frequently in the practice of removing the hard 

 integuments of barley by roasting it, and using the torrefied grain 

 as food. 



Manufacture — For use in medicine and as food for the sick, barley 

 is not employed in its crude state, but only when deprived more or less 

 completely of its husk. The process by which this is effected is carried 

 on in mills constructed for the purpose, and consists essentially in 

 passing the grain between horizontal ^millstones, placed so far apart as 

 to rub off" its integuments without crushing it. Barley partially deprived 

 of its husk is known as Scotch, hulled or Pot Barley. When by longer 

 and closer grinding the whole of the integuments have been removed, 

 and the grain has become completely rounded, it is termed Pearl Barley. 

 In the British PJtaiimiacopoeia it is this sort alone which is ordered to 

 be used. 



Description — Pearl Barley is in subspherical or somewhat ovoid 

 grains about 2 lines in diameter, of white farinaceous aspect, often partly 

 yellowish from remains of the adhering husk, which is present on the 

 surface, as well as in the deep longitudinal furrow with which each grain 

 is indented. It has the farinaceous taste and odour which are common 

 to most of the cereal grains. 



Microscopic Structure — The albumen which constitutes the main 

 portion of the grain is composed of large thin-walled parenchyme, the 

 cells of which on transverse section are seen to radiate from the furrow, 

 and to be lengthened in that direction rather than longitudinally. In 

 the vicinity of the furrow alone the tissue of the albumen is narrower. 

 Its predominating large cells show a polygonal or oval outline, whilst 

 the outer layer is built up of two, three or four rows of thick-walled, 

 coherent, nearly cubic gluten-cells. This layer, about 70 mkm. thick, is 

 coated with an extremely thin brown tegument, to which succeeds a layer 

 about 30 mkm. thick, of densely packed, tabular, greyish or yellowish 



1 On Chinese Botanical Works, etc., Foo- the rivers Bradano and Basento in the gulf 

 chow, 1870. 7. 8. of Taranto. 



- Metapontum lay in the plain between 



