Embryo and Aleurone Layer of Hordeum. 
1187 
TABLE XXXIX. 
Alcohol and Alcohol Water Steeped Material : Amylase 
Content of Endosperms from ( a ) Dehusked Seeds steeped in Absolute 
Alcohol for forty-eight hours, (b) Dehusked Seeds steeped successively in 
(1) Absolute Alcohol, (2) Water : forty-eight hours in each reagent. 
Chilian barley. Direct digestion method. 
Exp. 
Objects. 
1. 
5 endosperms ( a) 
2. 
5 >> 
(a) 
3 - 
5 
it) 
4 - 
5 
(t) 
Amylase per 20 objects per hour 
(equivalent to mg. Cu ). 
1 435 
»397 
1242 
1164 
The values afforded by Experiments 3 and 4 certainly indicate the 
occurrence of reduction, but it is not enormous, and whether it is due in 
the major part to diminution of salt-like substances in the seed coats or 
testa (since the husks were removed before steeping in water in Experi¬ 
ments 3 and 4), or to actual existence of smaller amounts of amylase in the 
objects, remains an open question. In short, the barley employed is not 
one which exhibits the feature in a marked degree under the conditions of 
experiment selected. Moreover, the explanation of the phenomenon of 
reduction is probably much more complex, since the entry of water into the 
inner tissues of seed in all probability leads to a readjustment of the entire 
chemical, biochemical, and physical conditions of the complex reaction 
system which the endosperm, regarded as the sphere of action, represents. 
Investigation of air-dried and steeped material by the auto-digestion method . 
The amylase content of air-dried and steeped material was next investi¬ 
gated comparatively by the two methods of predigestion, (1) auto- and 
(2) papain-digestion, originated by Ford and Guthrie. 
As usual, in place of using an aqueous or papain extract of the material 
these digestions were carried out in the presence of the finely-ground 
substance. 
The uniform method adopted in these experiments, and also in those 
with material from germinated seed, to be described later, was that given 
below ; the principal modifications being the reduction in the number of 
objects taken and increase in the volume and concentration of soluble starch 
solution used in each digestion experiment, changes necessitated by reason 
of the increase in the amylase content of certain of the structural parts of 
the seed under the new conditions of determination. 
Each experimental and control predigestion and the subsequent diges¬ 
tion with soluble starch was carried out with 25 objects (intact seeds and 
structural parts); the seeds after removal from the steep or germinator being 
