METHOD FOR DETERMINING WEIGHT OF PARTS OF EGGS. lOI 



and those cooled under water lost from 0.91 gr. to 1.33 gr. with 

 a mean of 1.1425. This experiment shows that the loss of 

 weight in boiling and cooling is not decreased when the eggs 

 are cooled in small closed chambers. The slight difference 

 (0.038 gr.) in the amount of loss in the two cases is too small 

 to be significant when such small numbers are concerned. 

 When the eggs were cooled under water there was a decided 

 decrease in the loss of weight. The two means are 1.578 in 

 the case of the eggs cooled in air and 1.1425 in the case of 

 those cooled under water. The mean loss is thus reduced by 

 cooling in water to about three-fourths the loss when the cooling 

 is in air. However, a loss of more than one gram in weight is 

 too large to be overlooked in a quantitative study of the pro- 

 portion of parts of eggs, and therefore any plan which involves 

 the boiling of the eggs must be discarded in accurate work. 



With a little care and practice fresh eggs can be separated 

 accurately. This may be accomplished by a slight modification 

 of the housewife's method. An egg should be broken near the 

 center allowing the albumen to run into a receiving dish, hold- 

 ing the yolk in one half of the shell. Then turn the yolk into 

 the other half shell and empty into the receiving dish the albu- 

 men which remained with the yolk. The chalazse may usually 

 be cut off by allowing each of them to slip over the shell so 

 that they hang free with the yolk end on the broken edge of 

 the shell. If the weight of the chalaza is insufficient, pressure 

 may be applied at the edge of the shell or each chalaza may be 

 clipped off with scissors. The chalazas are allowed to fall into 

 the receiving dish. The yolk is then poured out of the half 

 shell on to a filter paper and rolled on the paper until the last 

 trace of albumen is removed. It is then dropped onto the 

 scale pan. The shell is also wiped with filter paper to remove 

 the adhering albumen. The weight of the parts of the egg 

 may thus be determined by weighing the egg before it is broken 

 and then weighing the yolk and shell, which have both been 

 dried of adhering albumen with filter paper. The weight of 

 the albumen is then obtained by difference. 



While this is obviously the most accurate method of deter- 

 mining the weight of the fresh albumen, it is impossible to 

 determine the error in weighing the parts of the egg unless all 

 the parts are weighed. The purpose of some of the preliminary 



