CHANGES IK FRESH BEEP DURING COLD STORAGE. 27 
v Amino nitrogen. — In the course of 100 days of autolysis the amino 
nitrogen has increased from 2.24 per cent to 18.86 per cent of the 
total nitrogen, or from less than one-tenth to more than one-half of 
the total soluble nitrogen. 
Insoluble phosphorus. — The ratio of insoluble phosphorus to total 
phosphorus is seen to be a decreasing function of the time of incuba- 
tion, and while the rate of decrease is not entirely regular it will be 
seen that, on the whole, the rate diminishes as the incubation period 
is extended. At the end of the one-hundredth day of incubation but 
1.76 per cent of the total phosphorus remains in insoluble form, as 
against 20.16 per cent originally present. These changes may be 
considered as due to the action of the enzyms lipase and nuclease 
upon the phosphatids and nucleic acids, respectively. 
Total soluble phosphorus. — The changes in the ratio of total solu- 
ble phosphorus to total phosphorus are naturally equal and opposite 
to corresponding changes in the ratio of insoluble phosphorus to total 
phosphorus, and have no further significance. 
Soluble organic phosphorus. — The figures for the ratio of soluble 
organic phosphorus to total phosphorus are peculiar, in that during 
the first seven days of autolysis this ratio decreased from its initial 
value of 23.87 per cent to its minimum value of 3.64 per cent. This 
large initial decrease, however, should not be regarded with sus- 
picion, since the continued increase in soluble inorganic phosphorus 
indicates the continued cleavage of organic phosphorus that one 
would expect. It would appear, therefore, that after the first ener- 
getic cleavage of the preformed soluble organic phosphorus com- 
pounds, the activity of the phosphatase decreases, and that new solu- 
ble organic compounds of phosphorus — cleavage products from the 
insoluble fraction— accumulate at a rate that is sometimes greater 
than the rate at which they are broken down by the phosphatase. 
The possibility, of course, is not excluded that the accumulating phos- 
phorus compounds are inherently less susceptible to the action of the 
phosphatase than are those originally present in the fresh meat. 
Soluble inorganic phosphorus. — Except in the case of samples Nos. 
112 and 113, the ratio of soluble inorganic phosphorus to total phos- 
phorus increases continuously throughout the experiment, until at 
the end of the one-hundredth day of autolysis it has attained a value 
of 92.50 per cent, as against its original value of 55.97 per cent — more 
than three-fourths of the increase having taken place during the first 
seven days of incubation. 
SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF AUTOLYSIS EXPERIMENTS. 
The results of the autolysis experiments reported in this paper may 
be summarized as follows: 
1. Physical changes in the samples of muscular tissue were not 
marked, even at the conclusion of the experiment, and consisted 
