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CHAPTER IV. 



FECULAS, OR STARCHES. 



The Starches of commerce are numerous and highly inter- 

 esting ; they are well worthy of attention from the extraor- 

 dinary influence they exert in the economy of vegetation. 

 Unfortunately however much obscurity invests their history, 

 which, as it requires the nicest microscopical investigations 

 to elucidate, must still occupy both time and attention. 

 Starch is found to exist in all plants, and although it appears 

 first as a secretion of the plant-cell, it appears eventually to 

 assume the character of a cell itself. 



Leeuwenhoek, the eminent German microscopist, asserted 

 that starch granules were cells having soluble contents, but 

 an insoluble case ; this theory was also taken up by many 

 other philosophical investigators, especially those of the 



