668 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 
with acetic 0:2 per cent. gives in all cases tryptophane reaction in forty-eight hours. 
Boiled controls negative. 
Extract with fibrin (boiled in urea) in natural medium (faint acidity) NaCO, 
1 per cent. ; acetic 2 per cent. All give tryptophane in twenty-four hours. Boiled 
zontrols negative. 
Extract with ground barley, shaking twenty-four hours. Kjehldahl estimation 
of soluble nitrates shows 7-05 per cent. increase in unboiled over boiled. (Dr. Horace 
Brown’s method—we are very much indebted for help in this.) 
Crushed spadix auto digest: under toluol, with NaCl, 0:2 per cent.; with 
salicylic acid, 2 per cent. Tryptophane is present after forty-eight hours, and has 
totally disappeared in fourteen days. Boiled controls never show any trace. 
Crushed ovules and ovule region give no tryptophane. 
Oxydases were tested for in Dracunculus, S. guitatum, and A. crinitum with 
H,0, and guaiaconic acid. They are present in the spadix, but hardly traceable 
in the filtrate. 
The disappearance of tryptophane above noted under aseptic conditions seems 
of peculiar interest as a result of enzyme activity. Material has been wanting for 
determining whether it is due to further cleavage of the molecule or to oxidation in 
the presence of strong oxydases. 
The sad failure of our growers (to whom we are nevertheless much indebted) 
to give an adequate supply of material has up to now prevented us from tracing 
the point in floral development at which each enzyme is liberated, or from obtain- 
ing any quantitative analyses apart from those of gaseous interchange. 
The electrical responses under these very active conditions seemed likely to be 
of value, In Sawromatum the very elongated spadix frequently shows an unequal 
state of activity (as indicated by the temperature) in different regions. ‘The 
responses were found to bear a definite relation to this hotter region—namely, to 
run from inactive to active spot within the tissue. The normal current (¢.e., prior to 
stimulation) was of opposite direction. The responses over short distances were of 
opposite direction to the stimulation, extra-polar currents away from the stimu- 
lated region at either kathode or anode. 
The values varied enormously. 
4, The Play of Forces in the Normally Dividing Cell. 
Sy Professor Marcus Hartoe, D.Se. 
The processes, dynamic, and other, of the normally dividing cell may be 
analysed as follows: 
(1) Such as are known in the inorganic world: (a) osmosis and turgor, found 
in the enlargement of the spindle; (4) traction and tension of the viscid threads 
of the spindle; (c) fluid resistance deforming the disceding chromosomes; 
(d) solution and desolution ; (e) surface tension. 
(2) Such as are known to occur elsewhere in living plasma, but which have 
not been adequately referred to physico-chemical phenomena: (a) growth of 
centrosomes of chromatic substance and of achromatic fibres; (2) protoplasmic 
movements, and especially that which is expressed in the elongation of the spindle ; 
(c) the transverse division of the elongated viscid bodies, with increase of their 
surface, occurring in the chromatin granules at right angles to the threads in 
which they lie, and in the final division of the cell; (d@) the fusion and apparent 
loss of identity of the daughter-chromosomes, and in the reconstitution of the 
daughter-nuclei. 
(8) ‘Mitokinetism,’ a force analogous to electrostatic force, manifested in 
the karyokinetic figure, in the splitting of the chromosomes, and in the discession 
of their daughter-segments. 
(4) Such as tind no clear equivalents elsewhere: the resolution of the nuclear 
network into a definite number of chromosomes, the orderly sequence of events, 
