4 Nebraska Agricultural Exp, Station, Research Bui, 8. 
We found the character of the gluten to be quite different when 
tap water, which contains salts, was used in place of distilled 
water, being tougher and more elastic, just as pointed out by 
Wood and Hardy.^ Since we wished to avoid the effect of any 
salts which might be absorbed by the gluten from the tap water, 
all samples of gluten were prepared with distilled water. The 
gluten ball was pressed out between glass plates to a fairly 
uniform thickness. After standing some time between the plates 
(during which time some fluid was usually squeezed off), disks 
could be cut from the gluten with a large cork borer, which were 
fairly uniform as to surface and weight. The disks were weighed 
to the nearest centigram and placed in the solution for exactly 
2 hours, whereupon they were removed, drained on a Buchner 
funnel, and weighed again. The method is necessarily somewhat 
crude, because the gluten is moist when weighed originally and 
because of the variation in the amount of water which mechan- 
ically adheres to the disks. Nevertheless, when the average 
of a number of determinations is taken the results are surprisingly 
uniform. 
Table 1. — Lactic acid. 
Cone, of acid 
Wt. of water absorbed in g. per g. of moist gluten 
Average 
A 
B 
C 
D 
None 
0.046 
0.075 
0.043 
0.055 
0.002 N 
1.30 
1.31 ' 
1.02 
1.07 
1.18 
0.005 N 
1.42 
1.54 
1.35 
1.55 
1.46 
0.01 N 
1.51 
1.77 
1.44 
1.55 
1.57 
0.02 N 
1.60 
1.55 
1.53 
1.61 
1.57 
0.04 N 
1.48 
1.51 
1.35 
1.42 
1.44 
0.1 N 
1.37 
1.38 
1.07 
1.28 
1.27 
0.2 N 
1.23 
1.15 
1.11 
1.19 
1.15 
0.5 N 
1.01 
Lost 
0.99 
1.08 
1.03 
^Wood and Hardy, Proc. Roy. Soc. London, (B) 81, 38 (1909). 
