Examine a few of the many varieties of other kinds of starch granules, as in rice, arrowroot, etc.

Press some dry starch powder between the thumb and forefinger, and note the peculiar crepitation.

Rub a few bits of starch in a little cold water.

Add powdered dry starch to cold water.

Boil a little starch with water; if there is enough starch it sets on cooling and a paste results.

Moisten some flour with water until it forms a tough, tenacious dough; tie it in a piece of cotton cloth, and knead it in a vessel containing water until all the starch is separated.

Its principal element, besides water, is a ferment called ptyalin, which has the remarkable property of being able to change starch into a form of cane-sugar, known as maltose.

To show the action of saliva on starch.

Make a thin paste from pure starch or arrowroot.

Label three test tubes A, B, and C. In A, place starch paste; in B, saliva; and in C one volume of saliva and three volumes of starch paste.

Therefore, starch is converted into a reducing sugar by the saliva.

It is found that the liver of an animal well and regularly fed, when examined soon after death, contains a quantity of a carbohydrate substance not unlike starch.

Again, this most important digestive fluid produces on starch an action similar to that of saliva, but much more powerful.

Now, the pancreatic juice takes up the work in the small intestine and changes the greater part of the starch into sugar.

To show the action of pancreatic juice on starch.

The starch paste will rapidly become thinner, and gradually change into soluble starch, in a perfectly fluid solution.

The starch paste will rapidly become thinner, and gradually change into soluble starch, in a perfectly fluid solution.

Within a few minutes some of the starch is converted through intermediary stages into maltose.

While we are chewing and swallowing our food, no doubt a certain amount of water and common salt, together with sugar which has been changed from starch by the action of the saliva, gains entrance to the blood.

Test a portion of C (Experiment 57) with solution of iodine; no blue color is obtained, as all the starch has disappeared, having been converted into a reducing sugar, or maltose.

Make a thick starch paste; place some in test tubes, labeled A and B. Keep A for comparison, and to B add saliva, and expose both to about 104 degrees F. A is unaffected, while B soon becomes fluidwithin two minutesand loses its opalescence; this liquefaction is a process quite antecedent to the saccharifying process which follows. Experiment 68.

Such are starch, gum, cellulose, and so forth, which are almost identical in their ultimate composition, and admit of ready conversion into sugar by a simple process of vital chemistry.

It is a little singular that the active principles of coffee and tea are probably identical,no more so, however, than the marvellous similarity of starch, gum, and sugar, or other chemical wonders.

The insides of the boxes are lined with press cloths, and when filled these cloths are carefully folded over the mall, which is now of the consistence of starch; and a heavy beam, worked on two upright three-inch screws, is let down on the lid of the press.

"I don't mean that he boltedhe'd got enough starch left in him not to do thatbut