Newcombe. — Cellulose-Enzymes. 6 9 
the cotyledon ; since a granular mass containing considerable 
liquid could be scraped from the corroded surface of the 
endosperm, and beneath this was only hard substance. 
The extract of this endosperm-material was prepared as 
before, the material being dried, ground, extracted with 
water, and the filtrate treated with alcohol. The precipitate 
was scanty and of an ashy white colour. Of this dried 
precipitate, 150 mg. were placed in a little vial with 5 cc. of 
water acidulated to -o5°/ 0 with hydrochloric acid. Probably 
about one-half the powder went into solution. 
With this solution, preparations were made on glass slides 
as before, sections of Barley-endosperm being immersed in 
three drops of the liquid, and the slides kept at 33 0 in 
chloroform-vapour in a damp chamber. Sections were used 
from which the starch had been removed with saliva, and 
other sections in which starch remained. In both cases 
a marked thinning of the walls could be seen within six 
hours. In twenty-four hours only the thinnest middle lamella 
remained to represent the walls of the starch-bearing cells, 
and the entire wall showed solution at the edges of the 
sections. In most of the many tests made the entire wall 
in this thin-walled tissue disappeared within forty-eight 
hours of the beginning of the test. 
This extract was able to dissolve the walls of the aleurone- 
layer of the Barley-endosperm also. The exposed walls of 
the aleurone-layer at the edges of the sections showed initial 
solution in twenty-four hours. In one case the whole 
aleurone-layer of one section was found hyaline in fifty-two 
hours after immersion in the ferment ; while in a somewhat 
thick section the aleurone-layer showed, after nineteen days 
in ferment-solution, islands of hard wall in the hyaline. 
Sections of a softened cotyledon from the seed of Lupinus 
albus were used to test the extract of Date-endosperm. The 
sections were first killed and extracted with chloroform, then 
extracted with water, and finally with extract of pancreas, 
before they were mounted, on slides in a few drops of the 
Date-ferment solution. The slides were kept in a damp 
