THE ALCOHOL INDUSTRY. PART I. 201 



Table XXX. — Analyses of the starch of the sugar palm. 





I. 



II. 



Moisture 



10.76 



0..50 



72.02 



1.6 



10.25 

 0.60 

 63.0 



Ash .. 



Starch.. 



Crude fiber 







THE OCCURRENCE OF MANNITOL IN PALM SAPS. 



Mannitol has been found to be widely distributed in the vegetable 

 kingdom. In Fraxinus ornus L. and F. rotundifolia Mill., celery 

 {Apium graveolens L.), in the leaves of Syringa vulgaris L., bark of 

 Canella alba Murr., sap of the larch (Pirnis larix L.), monkshood 

 (Aconitum napellus L.), laurel, olive, maxine algge, sugar cane, Callop- 

 isma vitellinum, many fungi and other plants.^"" 



Vintilesco "' has found d-mannite in Jasminum officinale L. and J. nudiflorum 

 Lindl., and there is evidence that it exists in J. fruticans L. 



"The manna which the Israelites are said to have used as bread during their 

 wanderings in the wilderness probably exuded from the branches of the Tamarirv 

 mannifera, which contains no mannite, but a fermentable sugar, whilst that which 

 fell from heaven probably was edible lichen, Spcerothallia esculenta, which grows 

 in Asia Minor, Persia, North Africa, etc., and is carried in masses before the 

 wind forming a rain of manna (Luerssen).""- 



A number of samples of manna, of various origin, have been examined by 

 Ebert"' and he states that none of them contain mannitol. 



Mannitol has been found by many investigators in fermented beverages, in 

 fermented onion juice, eider, fig wine, and grape wines.'"* 



Basile"° has found that Sicilian wines are subject to an abnormal fermenta- 

 tion, which is some years causes very great loss, the chief product of this fer- 

 mentation being mannitol produced from the glucose. It is generally the. red 

 wines which are attacked rather than the whites, and it is chiefly in hot, dry 

 seasons that. this fermentation prevails. In the same cellar and from the same 

 must wines are found varying in mannitol content, side by side, with good, sound 

 wines. 



Miiller-Thurgau ^"^ states that mannite is of rather common occurrence in grape 

 Avine and he has found it in fruit wines as well. Its development is caused by 



'<» Beilstein, Org. Chem., Hamburg u. Leipzig (1893), 1, 284; Erg. (1901), 



1, 104; Roscoe and Schorlemmer, Treatise on Chemistry, New York (1898), 3, 

 pt. 2, 484; Meyer u. Jaekobson, Org. Chem., Leipzig (1893), 1, 607. 



^"'Chem. Abstracts (1907), 1, 1605. 

 "" Roscoe & Schorlemmer, loc. oit. 



-"^Chem. Abstract (1909), 3, 570; Zeit. Ouster. Apoth.-Ver. (1908), 46, 427. 

 "*H. and A. Malbot, review of the question. Bull. Soc. Chem., Paris (1894), 

 11, 87, 176, 413. 



^<"Journ. Chem. Soc. Lond. Abs. (1896), 70, 2, 121. Chem. Gentralbl. (1894), 



2, 498. 



'"Chem. Abs. (1908), 2, 2713. 



