TUBERS— STARCH 97 



fingers creaks like fine sand. It is the starch of the 

 potato, and is made up of such fine grains that it 

 would take from one hundred and fifty to two hun- 

 dred to equal the head of a pin in size. Nevertheless 

 these grains, minute though they are, have a very 

 complicated structure, each one of them heing com- 

 posed of a large number of tiny leaflets folded one 

 over another. The picture I showed you just now 

 will serve to give you an idea of these superposed 

 leaflets that go to make, all together, a single grain. 

 Now if some of this starch is boiled in a little water, 

 the successive leaflets of the grain open and separate, 

 and the whole becomes an unctuous jelly far ex- 

 ceeding in volume that of the starch used." 



To prove this assertion, Uncle Paul proceeded to 

 heat in a little water the starch taken from the po- 

 tato, and soon the powdery matter was reduced to a 

 beautiful pellucid jelly. 



