Dr. J. Sack 145 
the above test it may be concluded that by the 
fourth day all the seeds would have been dead, 
and so from this moment one may conclude the 
internal fermentation commences. 
Change of Colour of the Seed. 
Seeing that with the fermentation of the 
pulp no substances arise which could be 
expected to exercise any influence worth speak- 
ing of, it seems probable that the changes 
which take place in the seed during fermenta- 
tion depend upon the mutual action of the 
substances which are actually présent in the 
seed itself. With the change of colour (from 
violet with the unfermented to brown with the 
fermented seeds) this indeed was proved to be 
the case. 
When crushing cacao seed in a mortar 
-one can already see, during the process, 
the violet colour changing into brown, which 
gets darker and darker the longer the cacao is 
left standing, and from experiments it was 
further proved that the brown colour only 
results with admission of the air; as a matter 
of fact, this is also the case with the fermentation 
of the beans, the brown colouring working from 
the outside to the inside; at the same time it 
appeared that this discolouration did not take 
place after the beans had been placed for some 
time in boiling water, but when, however, a 
few fresh beans were rubbed through this boiled 
mass the brown colouring showed itself after a 
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