=ALEUROM′ETER.= _Syn._ ALEUROMÈTRE, Fr. An instrument for determining the quantity and quality of gluten in wheat-flour, invented by M. Boland. It essentially consists of a hollow copper cylinder, about 6 inches long, and 3/4 of an inch internal diameter. This tube has two principal parts; the one, about 2 inches long, is closed at the lower end, forming a kind of cup, into which the gluten is placed; it screws into the remainder of the cylinder. The cup being charged with a sample of gluten, and the upper part of the cylinder being screwed on, it is exposed in an oven, or (preferably) in an oil bath, to a temperature of 350 to 380° Fahr.[17] From the length of the tube the gluten occupies in swelling, as measured by a graduated scale, its quality is determined. The ‘crude gluten’ of good wheat-flour augments to four or five times its original volume, when thus treated; but that from bad flour does not swell, becomes viscid and semi-fluid, and generally gives off a disagreeable odour; whilst that of good flour merely suggests the smell of hot and highly baked bread. [Footnote 17: Mr Mitchell recommends the heat to be 420°; whilst Dr Masprett gives 284° Fahr. as the proper temperature; but of these the first is too high, and the other too low. About 210 gr. are also ordered to be taken for examination; but the exact quantity is immaterial. (See Mitchell’s ‘Falsification of Food.’)] =AL′GA.= (-gă). [L.] Sea-weed. A common name of grass-wrack (‘zostera marina’——Linn.), though not one of the algæ. =AL′GÆ.= (ăl′-jē). [L. pl.] _Syn._ AL′GALS; ALGÆ (DC.), AL′GALES (Lindl.), L.; ALGUES, VARECH, Fr.; ALGE, MEERGRASS, SEEGRASS, Ger. Sea-weeds. In _botany_, an order of Thallogens living in water or very moist places, nourished throughout their whole surface by the medium in which they live, having no distinct axis of vegetation, and propagated by zoöspores, coloured spores, or tetraspores. Linnæus defines them——“plants, the roots, leaves, and stems of which are all in one.” The algæ consist either of simple vesicles lying in mucus, or of articulated filaments, or of lobed fronds formed of uniform cellular tissue. Those that vegetate in salt water are popularly called SEA-WEEDS (fu′ci, L.) and LA′VER (ulvæ, L.); those found in fresh water CONFER′VÆ. One of their divisions (the _Zoöspermeæ_) comprehends the lowest known forms of vegetable life, being merely adhering cells, emitting, at maturity, seeds or sporules having a distinct animal motion. In _Oscillatorias_, the whole plant twists and writhes spontaneously; and _Zymenas_ actually copulate like animals. Some of the Algæ possess great beauty. In the lower grades the colour is green; in the higher, red or purple.