II. Ripe fruits placed in a limited atmosphere, after having absorbed all the oxygen and set free an almost equal volume of carbonic acid, continue to emit that gas in notable quantity, even when no bruise is to be seen--"as though by a kind of fermentation," as Berard actually observes--and lose their saccharine particles, a circumstance which causes the fruits to appear more acid, although the actual weight of their acid may undergo no augmentation whatever. In this beautiful work, and in all subsequent ones of which the ripening of fruits has been the subject, two facts of great theoretical value have escaped the notice of the authors; these are the two facts which Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy pointed out for the first time, namely, the production of alcohol and the absence of cells of ferments. It is worthy of remark that these two facts, as we have shown above, were actually fore-shadowed in the theory of fermentation that we advocated as far back as 1861, and we are happy to add that Messrs. Lechartier and Bellamy, who at first had prudently drawn no theoretical conclusions from their work, now entirely agree with the theory we have advanced. [Footnote: Those gentlemen express themselves thus: "In a note presented to the Academy in November, 1872, we published certain experiments which showed that carbonic acid and alcohol may be produced in fruits kept in a closed vessel, out of contact with atmospheric oxygen, without our being able to discover alcoholic ferment in the interior of those fruits.