76 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
variety is nearly equal in size to the former, but is oval in shape, and 
measures 3-4 /x in length and 2-5-3 /x in breadth. This form has no 
name. The third variety is Mycoderma vini, which occurs in very 
variable quantities. In fresh yeast the quantity is small, but as the 
leaven becomes stale the quantity increases, and the author is disposed 
to regard it as an impurity. The fourth variety, only occasionally found, 
is apparently Saccharomyces cerevisise. No importance is attached to its 
presence. 
Bacterium A. This is a small rod about 1 J times longer than broad. 
It was isolated in neutral gelatin, and does not 2)ossess any positive 
characteristics. 
Bacterium B, isolated in a similar way, is about 1*5 /x long and 
0*4 p. broad. It was found to possess a slight power of dissolving 
starch, and of forming lactic acid in the presence of a yeast- water-sugar 
solution. 
Bacterium C is about 1*6 /x long and 0*8 /x broad ; the individual 
elements are rounded at one end and pointed at the other. It is incap- 
able of movement. This bacterium was found to produce acetic fermenta- 
tion, and the cultivation fluid used for the purpose was neutral yeast- 
water, to which 5 per cent, of alcohol had been added. 
Bacillus D was isolated on gelatin plates, and found to consist of 
individuals 2-3 /x long and 0 * 5 /x broad. These elements are mobile in 
one stage of their development ; they produce spores and also long motion- 
less filaments at other periods of their existence. It does not liquefy 
gelatin, but was found to dissolve starch. 
Bacillus E. The spores of this bacillus are about 1 * 6 /x long and 
0*8 /X broad. Grown in hanging drops, these swell up, forming small 
rods with rounded ends. After a short time these begin to increase by 
fission and become active. The rods then grow out into long threads. 
The cultivation medium was boiled white of egg, the ordinary sugar- 
pepton-meat-ex tract-gelatin being found useless, although, if the sugar 
were replaced by soluble starch, the gelatin was rapidly dissolved. It 
was also found that this bacillus was able to liquefy starch. In this 
exjDeriment wheat-starch was mixed with sterilized yeast-water. 
From his experiments with the foregoing organisms, the author con- 
’’udes that the fermentation of bread called forth by yeast consists in a 
eries of coincident and co-operative j^rocesses, of which the most essen- 
tial, the alcoholie fermentation, is effected by Saccharomycetes, while the 
lactic fermentation and the dissolvent processes are matters of only 
secondary consideration. 
Cotton-blight.* — Mr. L. St. Pammel has determined the cause of 
the widely-distributed “root-rot” of the cotton-j)lant or cotton-blight to 
be the attacks on the root of a parasitic fungus Ozonium auricomum, the 
same that causes also the rotting of the batatas, vine, mulberry, apple, 
and Boliclws. 
TJredo-stage of Gymnosporangium.f — Mr. H. M. Richards states 
that since, in their mode of germination, both the obtuse and fusiform 
* Bull. Texas Agricult.-Exp. Station, Dec. 1888, pp. 3-18. See Bot. Centralbl., 
xl. (1889) p. 59. 
t Bot. Gazette, xiv. (1889) pp. 211-5 (1 pi.). Cf. this Journal, 1889, p. 503. 
