5 6 Newcombe. — Cellulose- Enzymes. 
preparation on a glass slide is continued for so long a period 
with such a small amount of ferment-solution, the ferment 
must necessarily be renewed from time to time. If much 
evaporation is allowed to take place, the section soon becomes 
encrusted with a crystalline deposit which does not sub- 
sequently dissolve, and which interferes with observation 
and possibly with ferment-action. I have practised, therefore, 
washing out the ferment with water, and renewing the active 
solution twice a week. By this means the section is always 
transparent, the increasingly hyaline condition of the wall can 
be followed, and finally the hyaline and almost invisible wall 
can be seen to become finely granular and wholly disappear. 
The application of Bismarck-brown shows no remnant of wall 
remaining. In strong Barley-malt-extract, therefore, the loss 
of substance from walls of the Lupin begins almost imme- 
diately after immersion ; but, in the conditions here set forth, 
the complete dissolution is not effected, even in a thin section, 
for four or more weeks, and in this period only at the edges 
of the section. In this connexion it may be noted that 
Griiss 1 found sections of the endosperm of Phoenix dactylifera 
showing a hyaline condition and a solution at the exposed 
edges of walls first after two months’ action of a strong 
solution of Barley-malt-extract. 
The debated question of the thinning of the cotyledonary 
walls of the Lupin during germination will be considered 
later in the treatment of the enzyme of Lupinus albus. 
Once for all a statement may be made regarding controls : — 
neither extract of pancreas nor saliva dissolved or made 
appreciable change in the membranes of the Barley-endosperm, 
though sections were kept in these enzymes for two weeks at 
1 8° temperature. Similar sections of like material were kept 
for two weeks, at 3 2° to 34 0 temperature, in water acidulated to 
•°5% with hydrochloric acid, without showing in their mem- 
branes more change than a slight fibrillar structure. Sections 
of the cotyledon of Ltipinus albus after two weeks’ immersion 
1 Ueber die Einwirkung der Diastase-Fermente auf Reservecellulose : Ber. d. d. 
b. Gesellsch., xii (1894), Generalver. Hft., 60. 
