BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 403 
Kind of Wood. Per cent of ‘‘ crude fibre ’’ found by the Weende 
method, (wood dry at 100° C.). 
Inner Wood. Outer Wood. Bark. 
Gray Birch felled in May... . .. 54.48 55.23 
- . Ss AICtODERS » 69 ux tte’ (I.) 54.02 
che ig Pads .s eh die Manama CL bahtiOl On ee 
Alder felled in January. . ... .. 48.32 48.04 29.82 
Date Stones (I.) ..... . 26.08 
dhe se 6H.) 2... . . 24.74 | From Bulletin of the Bussey 
Peach ‘ Gh . 74.77 Institution. 1. 375. 
Prune ‘ . 54.74 
Nothing could illustrate better the inadequacy of the Weende 
process, in so far as woods are concerned, than the fact that on 
testing several of these samples of crude fibre for furfurol each of 
them yielded more than 20% of it, 7. e., the crude fibre consisted 
to the extent of considerably more than one-third its weight of 
pentosans. A still larger percentage of furfurol was obtained 
from the crude fibre of alder wood than was got from the crude 
fibre of birch. These results simply corroborate those of previous 
observers,* and it may be said to be admitted nowadays that the 
so-called crude fibre of the agricultural chemists always contains 
pentosans which are capable of yielding furfurol when distilled 
with strong acids. This remark is true not only of fibre obtained 
by the Weende method as above, but of that obtained by the pro- 
cesses of F. Schulze and Hoffmeister (treatment with potassium 
chlorate and nitric or hydrochloric acids) which yield fibre that 
is by no méans free from pentosans.t 
On examining paper-pulp that had been prepared commercially 
from spruce or pine wood, Flint and Tollens { obtained enough 
furfurol to show 5.51% of pentosans in dry pulp prepared by the 
sulphite process and 5.61% of pentosans in dry pulp prepared by 
means of soda. These results show celluloses so much less 
strongly contaminated with pentosans than are the crude fibres 
ordinarily obtained by chemists in analytical laboratories that I 
have been led to give some attention to an examination of the 
* Compare Winterstein, Zeitschrift fiir physiologische Chemie. 17. 385, 
and Goetze and Pfeiffer, Versuchs-Stationen. 47.75. See also Meissner, 
Shepard, Dietrich and Koenig, Versuchs-Stationen. 13, 222. 
+ E. Schulze, Zeitschrift fiir physiologische Chemie. 16, 430, 432; and 
Tollens’s Handbuch der Kohlenhydrate. 2. 203. See also Winterstein, Zeit- 
schrift fiir physiologische Chemie. 17. 385, 387. 
t Versuchs-Stationen. 42. 402, 403, 407. Cf. Handbuch der Kohlen- 
hydrate. 2, 253, 256. 
