_Saccharomyces_, which is always present in the rice, but which has
nothing to do with the _Aspergillus_. The fermentation is completed in
two or three weeks, and the golden yellow, sherry-like sake is poured
off. The sample manufactured contained 13.9 per cent. of alcohol.
Chemical investigation showed that the _Aspergillus_ mycelium transforms
the starch into glucose, and thus plays the part of a diastase.

Another substance produced from the _Aspergillus_ rice is the soja
sauce. The soja leaves, which contain little starch, but a great deal of
oil and casein, are boiled, mixed with roasted barley, and then with the
greenish yellow conidia powder of the _Aspergillus_. After the mycelium
has fructified, the mass is treated with a solution of sodium chloride,
which kills the _Aspergillus_, another fungus, of the nature of a
_Chalaza_, and similar to that produced in the fermentation of
"sauerkraut," appearing in its place. The dark-brown soja sauce then
separates.

* * * * *

ALUMINUM.

[Footnote: Annual address delivered by President J.A. Price before the
meeting of the Scranton Board of Trade, Monday, January 18, 1886.]

By J.A. PRICE.

Iron is the basis of our civilization. Its supremacy and power it is
impossible to overestimate; it enters every avenue of development, and
it may be set down as the prime factor in the world's progress. Its
utility and its universality are hand in hand, whether in the
magnificent iron steamship of the ocean, the network of iron rail upon
land, the electric gossamer of the air, or in the most insignificant
articles of building, of clothing, and of convenience. Without it, we
should have miserably failed to reach our present exalted station, and
the earth would scarcely maintain its present population; it is indeed
the substance of substances. It is the Archimedean lever by which the
great human world has been raised. Should it for a moment forget its
cunning and lose its power, earthquake shocks or the wreck of matter
could not be more disastrous. However axiomatic may be everything that
can be said of this wonderful metal, it is undoubtedly certain that it
must give way to a metal that has still greater proportions and vaster
possibilities. Strange and startling as may seem the assertion, yet I
believe it nevertheless to be true that we are approaching the period,
if not already standing upon the threshold of the day, when this magical
el