44() BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
spectively. Birch wood similarly treated gave quasi(a) D = 64°.5; 
and pine wood gave quasi(a) D = 71°. 
It was with the hope of explaining this matter that systematic 
experiments upon maple and birch woods, and upon cotton cloth 
also, were made, as is described on the following pages : — 
A. An Examination of the products of the Acid Hydrolysis of 
Wood from the trunk of a Sugar Maple Tree (Acer saccharinum). 
— Ten grams of maple wood in fine powder taken from the outer 
part (wholly free from bark) of the trunk of a tree four inches in 
diameter, felled on May 380th, in West Newfield, Maine, were 
soaked during 24 hours in 200 c.c. of strong ammonia-water, to 
remove coloring matter and albuminoids, and were then thrown 
upon a filter and washed with water. Enough dilute hydrochloric 
acid, of 3%, was poured into the filter to displace the moisture 
_ retained by the wood, and the latter was then boiled in a flask, 
with reflux condenser, over a free flame, with 200 c.c. of hydro- 
chloric acid of 83% during 3.5 hours. The undissolved wood was 
removed by filtration, and one half the product of the hydrolysis 
was neutralized with sodium hydroxide and decolorized with bone- 
black. On testing the solution with Fehling’s liquor it appeared . 
that 100 e.c. of it reduced as much cupric oxide as would haye 
been reduced if the solution had contained 0.5669 grm. of dex- 
trose. This quantity would be equal to 16.21% of dextrose in 
the dry wood. On observing in the polariscope through a 2 dm. 
tube a rotation of 0.5° was noted, 7. e. quasi(a) D = 44°.09. 
The other half of the liquid that had been removed from the 
wood was boiled 3.5 hours longer over a free flame, and was then 
neutralized and decolorized as before. The specific rotation in 
this case was quasi(a) D = 68°.17, and Fehling’s liquor showed 
‘‘sugar’” (calculated as dextrose) equal to 10.43% of the dry 
wood. 
Due allowance being made for the possibility of the presence 
in the solution of matters other than sugars, which might have 
some influence on the rotatory power, it is to be presumed that 
the sugar observed in the product of the first hydrolysis probably 
consisted of a mixture of xylose and dextrose, and that some of 
the latter was made to ‘‘ revert”? to compounds of higher rotatory 
and lower reducing powers by the second boiling, after the removal 
