Nov. 13, 1916 
Vegetable-Ivory Meal 
305 
It was noticed that five hours’ boiling in an acid solution was necessary 
to hydrolyze completely the mannose and other reducing materials and 
that more than five hours’ boiling produced no increased percentage. 
The percentages were calculated not as mannose but as dextrose, 
since no table for the determination of mannose by Fehling’s method 
has been found. 
The pentosans present no doubt had a somewhat different reducing 
capacity than the mannan. However, when appropriate allowance had 
been made for moisture and pectin (previously determined), the total 
carbohydrates estimated in this fashion approached to within less than 
1 per cent of the amount estimated as nitrogen-free extract in the original 
fodder analysis. It is evident, therefore, that the so-called nitrogen- 
free extract, comprising fully 75 per cent of the vegetable-ivory meal, 
was composed principally of mannan with small amounts of pentosans 
and of a substance insoluble in alcohol but not identical with the pectin 
substances as usually found in plants. 
CALORIFIC VALUE OF VEGETABLE-IVORY MEAL 
To determine the calorific value of this substance a number of bomb- 
calorimeter determinations were made, the average of which is given in 
Table III, together with representative figures for other common sub¬ 
stances used as food. 
Table III. — Comparative calorific values of vegetable-ivory meal t corn meal, sugar, and 
cornstarch 
Material. 
Small calories, 
per gram. 
Large calories, 
per pound. 
Vegetable-ivory meal . 
3 , 78 s 
3,549 
3,958 
3,692 
h 717 
1 , 610 
I » 753 
1,675 
Com meal (0, p. 401;, 420) 1 . 
Sugar (guaranteed). 
Cornstarch (q. p. aok. 420).. 
W* UWVVM \y 1 I J * T V / .. tttt*.. 
1 H. P. Armsby ( 2 , p. 13) reports com meal as having a chemical energy of 170.9 therms per 100 pounds, 
the equivalent of 3,766 small calories per gram, or 1,709 large calories per pound. 
In button factories, where the largest amount of ivory waste, or meal, 
is produced, the material is used under the boilers as fuel, and it has been 
authoritatively stated 1 that it produces about half as much heat as 
coal. It is interesting to note how accurately this statement is borne 
out scientifically. The average of 20 samples of soft coal recently ana¬ 
lyzed at this station was 14,074 B. T. U., which, expressed in large calories 
per pound, equals 3,546. This figure is approximately twice that of 
the vegetable-ivory meal, 1,717. 
1 Courtesy of Mr. C. J. Spill, Superintendent of the United Button Co., Springfield, Mass. 
