BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 405 
On examining this so-called cellulose, left after the fusion of 
wood with caustic potash, it appeared that it was by no means 
free from pentosans. Some of the cellulose thus obtained from 
the outer wood of the gray birch felled in October was boiled for 
one hour in hydrochloric acid of 1% and there was obtained sugar 
enough to amount to 11.91% of pentosans in the cellulose or to 
5.88% in the original dry wood, and on distilling for furfurol the 
residue left after the action of the 1% acid, there was found 
2.24% of it, 7. e., enough to amount to 7.72% of pentosans in the 
cellulose or 4.12% in the original-wood. By adding together the 
quantities of pentosans obtained by the acid and by the furfurol 
it appears that the dry ‘‘ cellulose”? contained 19.63% of these 
substances. 
So too, on boiling the ‘‘ cellulose’”’ from the outer wood of the 
sugar maple with 1% hydrochloric acid there was obtained 12.08% 
of pentosans in this cellulose or 6.71% in the wood. 
The cellulose from the ivory nut on being boiled for one hour 
with hydrochloric acid of 1% gave sugar enough to amount to 
9.94% of paramannan in that cellulose or to 2.98% in the original 
dry nut. 
It should here be said that Cross and Bevan * have expressed 
their disapproval of Lange’s process in the following terms. 
‘* Quantitative results obtained by this method have only a limited 
value; and, as estimations of ‘‘ cellulose,” are subject to large 
and variable errors.” And yet—Zin view of the fact that the 
fusion with caustic potash removes lignic acids from the materials 
operated upon —it is probably true that Lange’s method is the 
best method yet devised for determining cellulose in the ordinary 
run of coarse foddering materials, provided that a correction be 
made by estimating pentosans (by way of furfurol or by phloro- 
glucin) in the so-called cellulose and subtracting the weight of the 
pentosan from that of the ‘‘ cellulose”’ left by the potash, which is 
in this case simply a mixture of cellulose and a pentosan, and 
not the mixture of cellulose, pentosans and ‘lignin,’ which is 
so often encountered in the ordinary conduct of fodder analy- 
sis. This method of procedure would not be applicable, how- 
ever, for the analysis of the ivory nut and other palm seeds, 
or products from these seeds, for, as has been set forth above and 
* In their book entitled ‘‘ Cellulose,” page 23. 
