INTRODUCTION--DEALING WITH THE SUBJECT IN GENERAL OUTLINE 1 SECTION I. GENERAL CHEMISTRY OF THE TYPICAL COTTON CELLULOSE 13 II. SYNTHETICAL DERIVATIVES--SULPHOCARBONATES AND ESTERS 27 III. DECOMPOSITIONS OF CELLULOSE SUCH AS THROW LIGHT ON THE PROBLEM OF ITS CONSTITUTION 67 IV. CELLULOSE GROUP, INCLUDING HEMICELLULOSES AND TISSUE CONSTITUENTS OF FUNGI 97 V. FURFUROIDS, i.e. PENTOSANES AND FURFURAL-YIELDING CONSTITUENTS GENERALLY 114 VI. THE LIGNOCELLULOSES 125 VII. PECTIC GROUP 152 VIII. INDUSTRIAL AND TECHNICAL. GENERAL REVIEW 155 INDEX OF AUTHORS 177 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 178 CELLULOSE INTRODUCTION In the period 1895-1900, which has elapsed since the original publication of our work on 'Cellulose,' there have appeared a large number of publications dealing with special points in the chemistry of cellulose. So large has been the contribution of matter that it has been considered opportune to pass it under review; and the present volume, taking the form of a supplement to the original work, is designed to incorporate this new matter and bring the subject as a whole to the level to which it is thereby to be raised. Some of our critics in reviewing the original work have pronounced it 'inchoate.' For this there are some explanations inherent in the matter itself. It must be remembered that every special province of the science has its systematic beginning, and in that stage of evolution makes a temporary 'law unto itself.' In the absence of a dominating theory or generalisation which, when adopted, gives it an organic connection with the general advance of the science, there is no other course than to classify the subject-matter. Thus 'the carbohydrates' may be said to have been in the inchoate condition, qualified by a certain classification, prior to the pioneering investigations of Fischer. In attacking the already accumulated and so far classified material from the point of view of a dominating theory, he found not only that the material fell into systematic order and grew rapidly under the stimulus of fruitful investigation, but in turn contributed to the firmer establishment of the theoretical views to which the subject owed its systematic new birth. On the other hand, every chemist knows that it is only the simpler of the carbohydrates which are so individualised as to be connoted by a particular formula in the stereoisomeric system. Leaving the monoses, there is even a doubt as to the constitution of cane sugar; and the elements of uncertainty thicken as we approach the question of the chemical structure of starch. This unique product of plant life has