86 FEKMENTATION. 



is aware that when treated with potash, the nitrogenous 

 contents are diminished, which is also shown in the 

 different results obtained by Schlossberger and by 

 me. Eut it was convenient to him in this instance to 

 copy only Schlossberger' s numbers. 



But what follows is still worse ; ferment, burnt 

 as such, should have a composition of its own. Fer- 

 ment consists of cells and their contents, each formed 

 of a totally different substance. "Walz professes to 

 have found, in two different kinds of ferment, the 

 same contents, and ^the same amount of hydrogen, 

 exactly corresponding in quantity with that in fer- 

 ment cellulose, although a considerable quantity of 

 albuminous matter must in every case be found in fer- 

 ment as a whole, and this albumen has 7 per cent, 

 hydrogen. Should 25 different kinds of ferment be 

 analysed, some difference would be detected in each, 

 just as the contents of sacks filled with the same 

 article, for example, money, would not necessarily be 

 alike. Eut I will not detain the reader longer with 

 these numbers. 



Eraconnot's* analyses of wine ferment, made some 

 few years since, well deserve to be more particularly 

 mentioned. He treated a sediment obtained from 

 wine with carbonate of potash or soda, in order to 

 saturate the acids, and found that a large portion 

 of the actual fermenting matter was thereby dissolved. 



* Annales de Chimie, t. xlvi. p. 69. 



