Hodges — On ffie Fibre of the Flax Plant. 461 



it was followed, at subsequent Meetings, by Eeports, by the same 

 chemist, on the gases evolved in the steeping process ; on the compo- 

 sition of the steep-water ; and on the composition of dressed flax. In 

 this preliminary Eeport of a series of investigations on which I have 

 been for some time engaged, I have endeavoured to extend our know- 

 ledge of the nature of some of the organic constituents of the plant, 

 and also of the effect of certain agents on the fibre. Flax as sold to 

 the spinner consists, as is well known, of long and fine filaments, 

 separated from the stem of the plant usually in this country by a 

 process called "retting," in which a decomposition of some of the 

 cementing materials which hold together the structures of the plant is 

 effected, so that the textile filaments can be completely detached from 

 the non-elastic and worthless portion of the stem, by the mechanical 

 means afterwards employed. The cells which serve technical purposes 

 in the fiax plant are those which exist in the bast tissue ; these cells, 

 of which the fundamental material is cellulose, are accompanied with 

 various incrusting and intercellular matters, which easily undergo 

 solution or decomposition by chemical means — sulphate of aniline, as 

 suggested by Wiesner, affords a test of exceeding delicacy for these 

 incrusting matters, by the production of a yellow colour. The bast 

 cells, as shown by the microscope, consist of long thick- walled cells 

 in which the lumen has almost entirely disappeared. Iodine and sul- 

 phuric acid render the bast cells blue, while sulphate of aniline on the 

 unbleached fibre shows the presence of some adhering and incrusting 

 matter, by the production of a vivid golden-yellow colour ; in the per- 

 fectly purified and bleached fibre this re-agent usually causes no change 

 of colour, unless some of the incrusting matters have not been removed. 

 The short cells and vessels which are situated on the inner side of the 

 bast bundles of the plant are not rendered blue by the action of iodine 

 and sulphuric acid. A series of of longitudinal and transverse sections 

 ctf the structures which compose the stem of the plant, made in the 

 laboratory of Professor Hodges, and carefully delineated by Mr. Tuffen 

 "West, whose abilities in drawing microscopic objects is so well known, 

 affords probably the most perfect representation of their histological 

 character which has hitherto been made, and also serves to show the 

 effect of re-agents and the arrangement and mode of union of the cells. 

 The action of nitric acid as shown in Plate XIV., fig. 1, is instructive 

 as exhibiting the spiral striation of the thickening layers ; while that 

 of sulphuric acid and iodine on the section of an isolated cell, as exhi- 

 bited in Plate XV., fig. 1, displays the concentric layers. In Plate B, 

 fig. 2, the position of the groups of the bast fibres in the stem of the 

 plant is well shown : fig. 3 shows the cuticle with stoma and remairij^ 

 of chlorophyll. A more full description of these Plates will be given 

 in a subsequent communication. 



Chemical ^Examination. 



The flax fibre used in this investigation was pure Irish milled flax, 

 of medium quality. 



