and fat. So it is
quite possible to live on sawdust, although it would be too expensive a
diet for anybody but a millionaire, and he would not enjoy it. Glucose
has been made from formaldehyde and this in turn made from carbon,
hydrogen and oxygen, so the synthetic production of food from the
elements is not such an absurdity as it was thought when Berthelot
suggested it half a century ago.

The first step in the making of alcohol is to change the starch over
into sugar. This transformation is effected in the natural course of
sprouting by which the insoluble starch stored up in the seed is
converted into the soluble glucose for the sap of the growing plant.
This malting process is that mainly made use of in the production of
alcohol from grain. But there are other ways of effecting the change. It
may be done by heating with acid as we have seen, or according to a
method now being developed the final conversion may be accomplished by
mold instead of malt. In applying this method, known as the amylo
process, to corn, the meal is mixed with twice its weight of water,
acidified with hydrochloric acid and steamed. The mash is then cooled
down somewhat, diluted with sterilized water and innoculated with the
mucor filaments. As the mash molds the starch is gradually changed over
to glucose and if this is the product desired the process may be stopped
at this point. But if alcohol is wanted yeast is added to ferment the
sugar. By keeping it alkaline and treating with the proper bacteria a
high yield of glycerin can be obtained.

In the fermentation process for making alcoholic liquors a little
glycerin is produced as a by-product. Glycerin, otherwise called
glycerol, is intermediate between sugar and alcohol. Its molecule
contains three carbon atoms, while glucose has six and alcohol two. It
is possible to increase the yield of glycerin if desired by varying the
form of fermentation. This was desired most earnestly in Germany during
the war, for the British blockade shut off the importation of the fats
and oils from which the Germans extracted the glycerin for their
nitroglycerin. Under pressure of this necessity they worked out a
process of getting glycerin in quantity from sugar and, news of this
being brought to this country by Dr. Alonzo Taylor, the United States
Treasury Department set up a special laboratory to work out this
problem. John R. Eoff and other chemists working in this laboratory
succeeded in getting a yiel