Busk on Starch- Granules, 59 
is quoted by Professor Schleiden, writing eight years after- 
wards,* and he adds that these eight years, notwithstanding the 
publication of innumerable works by chemists and vegetable 
physiologists, had been equally thrown away in the investi- 
gation of this important vegetable element ; but, strangely 
enough, asserting that this unsatisfactory result had arisen 
solely in consequence of neglect, or from superficial micro- 
scopic examinations. 
If our knowledge respecting the structure of the starch-grain 
were thus unsatisfactory in 1844, it can scarcely be said to 
have been much enlarged since, notwithstanding the investiga- 
tions of the learned and eminent Professor himself; and to 
which investigations — whatever he may be inclined to think or 
express with respect to the labours of others — he would not be 
the last to resent the imputation of superficiality. 
We cannot but believe that a subject, which has thus baffled 
the endeavours of so many and such competent inquirers, must 
possess some inherent difficulty, for, in 1851, we find Dr. A. 
Braun,f one of the most accurate and acute of recent vegetable 
physiologists, still lamenting, in the same terms as Schleiden, the 
want of accurate knowledge on the subject of the origin, forma- 
tion, and structure of starch, which he is of opinion demands a 
new and careful investigation, seeing that none of the views 
set up are sufficiently based upon direct observation. 
Having lately been incidentally led to the investigation of 
the structure of the starch-granule, I have thought the results 
might be interesting to the Society, although they cannot be 
said to be altogether novel. 
In the numerous and very different modes in which it has 
been attempted to explain the structure of the starch-granule, 
only two really and essentially distinct views seem to be ex- 
pressed. " These views," as Schleiden observes, " are de- 
cidedly opposed to each other, and on the assumption or rejec- 
tion of them, the chemical judgment passed upon this substance 
must essentially depend." 
1. According to the one view the starch-granule is a vesicular 
body, the wall of which differs, at all events in consistence, if 
not in chemical constitution from the contents. 
2. In the other view the granule is considered as a solid 
body, constituted either of a homogeneous substance, or com- 
posed of concentric layers, deposited, according to one set of 
observers, around a nucleus, either differing in its chemical 
* 'Principles of Scientific Botany.' Translated by Dr. Lankester. 
1849. p. 19. 
t ' Betrachtungen iib. d. Erscheinung der Verjiingung in der Katur.' 
1851. 
/2 
