Description

Tube, Laboratory: Sealed glass laboratory tube (the longer of two in the A.P. Anderson display case) containing puffed and unpuffed grains and an accompanying handwritten, paper label: "Wheat- slightly polished before process, First made December 14, 1901 by Alexander P. Anderson." This tube was like the kind used by A.P. Anderson when he puffed grain for the first time by sealing glass laboratory tubes, heating them in an oven, and breaking the glass while it was hot. This explosion shattered the starch molecule, causing the grain to expand many times its normal size while maintaining its original shape.