INTRODUCTION 3 
leaf in sunlight) can turn sugar into starch again. 
As the biologist searches and gropes for a glimpse at 
the origin of life, so the modern chemist is struggling to 
find some method of transforming sugar into starch 
without the agency of the green leaf; and the discovery 
will be made, difficult or impossible as it may now seem, 
and then it will revolutionise our modern food industries, 
and cause the arid deserts to be as fertile or productive 
as our richest meads and our best tilled farms. 
