Sugar. As everyone knows, sugar is a soft, white, solid and tasty substance, widely used in pantries, kitchens and even in pharmacy for the making of syrups and for the preparation of many remedies; it dissolves completely in water, to which it gives a lovely flavor, without changing either the color or the odor.

Although it is difficult to precisely determine the time when sugar first appeared in solid form, it is nevertheless certain, thanks to references in Theoprastes, Pliny and others, that the ancients were acquainted with it, and made use of the sap of certain reeds, which apparently were sugar canes, and to which Lucan seems to be referring when he said “Here from luscious reed men draw sweet liquor." But we have no evidence that Antiquity had the means of cooking this sap, of condensing it and reducing it to a solid white mass, as we have today; this will be our question in this article, after having spoken of sugar canes and their cultivation and the machines, tools and ingredients necessary for the preparation of this exotic product, which is one of the principle objects of maritime commerce.

Sugar canes : The sugar cane , or cane of sugar , depending on regional usage, differs from some hollow reeds, known as Spanish cane, in that it is massive: its knots are closer to each other, its bark is less woody, thinner and it encases a multitude of long fibers running parallel, forming a kind of cellular tissue, full of a soft, pleasant tasting and somewhat sticky sap, resembling a syrup diluted with a lot of water.

The body of the cane is divided by knots, the intervals of which grow proportionately to their distance from the roots: it is these knots from which grow the leaves that dry and fall off as the plant increases in size, such that all that remains is a bunch near the top; they are long, narrow, perforated imperceptibly near the edges, divided by a single vein and resembling large swordfish swords: when the plant flowers, a very straight main shoot of about 30-35 inches emerges from the midst of its leaves, about the thickness of the tip of a little finger, ornamented at the top with a plume scattered with tiny, very delicate tufts, and containing the seed.

Canes planted in good soil ordinarily grow from six to eight feet in height, containing around twelve to fifteen lines in diameter; they acquire a beautiful yellow color as they mature, and the sap that they contain is delicious. Those grown in low and marshy terrain grow up to a dozen or fifteen feet, if not more, and are almost as fat as arms; but their sap, although abundant, is very watery and not very sweet; dry climates, on the contrary, produce very small canes which grow very close together and whose sap is scant, and as if half-cooked by the energy of the sun.

Cultivation of sugar cane : Although the shoot or the flower spoken of above hides between its tufts many seeds, they are not used for the reproduction of the plant, experience having taught that it is more appropriate to plant canes from cuttings: this method is quicker and more certain, which is why the top of the canes is cut into pieces of fifteen to eighteen inches in length, and then embedded obliquely two at a time in holes destined to receive them; dirt is thrown over them, leaving the ends uncovered; and if the season is favorable, this seedling begins to grow at the end of six or eight days: the amount of underbrush which grows during the same time requires the weeding of the canes five or six times, until the point that they have acquired enough force to overcome weeds; once they have arrived at a certain height they are sometimes attacked by a large number of tiny insects, called by the inhabitants puchons or pucons ; ants cause no less damage, and rats also do them a great deal of harm.

In good soil that is well prepared and carefully maintained, the plant survives twelve or fifteen years, even more, without having to be replaced.

The age at which the canes should be cut is not fixed, the point of maturity being often retarded by the vagaries of the seasons; one must be careful not to harvest them when they are in flower, since they can only develop shoots at the expense of their own resources; experience has shown that one must anticipate this time by about a month, or even better, wait until it has passed.

Description of mills for crushing the canes : Ordinarily three kinds are constructed: those driven by water, wind and oxen or horses. See the illustration [Plate Two].

Their principal mechanism consists of three large wooden wheels of the same diameter, arranged vertically in an even line one next to the other, and each covered with a drum or cylinder of very thick metal, C . These wheels, or rollers, as they are called in the territories, are pierced along their axis by a large square hole, in which is embedded with force a large iron axle, of which the lower part is fitted out with a sharpened cone resting on a grating, and the upper end being of cylindrical form, turning freely in a metal flange. A few inches below the drum or cylinder are placed gears whose teeth mesh with each other. It is easy to see by the positioning of three rollers crowned with gears, that the one in the middle once set in motion, must push in the opposite direction those which are on either side of it; that is why the upper part of the center roller must be considerably extended in the windmills and in those which are moved by horse; but in the water mills this part is only elevated by a few feet: this is called the tall tree to which the power is attached. See the letter D , illustration of the water mill, and H in that of the ox mill.

Under the rollers is a strong table B , usually constructed from a single block, of which the top is somewhat hollowed in the form of a basin and lined with lead, having an extended spout if necessary, through which the sap of the canes crushed between the drums is delivered to the refinery; all of these pieces are well secured and reinforced in a wooden body A , very solidly built: in the water mills, a bit above the body is a horizontal wheel F , whose axis is the tall tree; the teeth of this wheel being perpendicularly arranged, they mesh between the spindles of a drive gear G, set in motion by the tall vertically oriented water wheel, on which falls water from the pipe X .

We know that in place of the water wheel, wind mills act by means of large wings. As for cattle mills, their mechanism is so simple that inspection of the illustration alone is enough to understand it.

Refinery, building, purifier, sterilizer; See these articles according to their alphabetical entries.

Bagasse storage . At some distance from the mill and the refinery, large covered hangars are constructed of cane leaves or reeds, serving to protect from the rain the bagasses or fragments of mill-crushed cane that are used to fuel the refinery.

The tools of refining are boilers, discussed in the article Refining; a canoe (a kind of large wooden trough made from a single piece of wood) for the juice or sap of the canes coming from the mill.

Red copper coolers; these are large basins with a flat bottom, having two handles for transport.

Becs-de-corbin, a type of large cauldron with two handles, having a wide mouth in the form of a spout. See bec-de-corbin.

Each boiler kit consists of a broom made of palm leaves, a large copper spoon in the form of a deep saucepan, and a large brass skimmer. These two instruments have a handle in the form of a stick of five feet in length: their use is obvious.

To process the juice and the syrup, filters are used; these are pieces of white wool, supported by a large square of wood pierced by several drilled holes, the base, in the form of a grill, is supported by two sticks forming the supports of a stretcher; these sticks rest across the sides of the ramp when one wants to transfer the juice or the syrup from one boiler to another.

One must also have several small buckets or tubs to receive the dregs.

A vat raised on feet and pierced at the base is used to make the necessary solution for the purification of sugar .

A vessel to prepare hot water for the same purpose.

Awls suitable to force the sugar into the forms.

Large wooden knives of three feet long, a kind of spatula, that the Refiners call pagaves .

The instruments which are necessary for the work done in the purgery (site where the molasses is drained off from the sugar ) are “tilles” (the phloem of lime trees plaited into cords), a kind of small adze with a short handle, round trowels, brushes similar to large paintbrushes, scythes, a refiner’s block, a sort of large three-legged stand, and an ample amount of prepared clay similar to that which is used to make pipes in Rouen.

It is indispensable to have a sufficient number of forms and their accompanying pots: these forms are large vases of clay cut into a conical shape, open entirely at the base and pierced with a hole at the point; their size ranges widely, some being more than three feet in height and about 15 inches in diameter at the base; others are only eighteen inches in height and proportionate in diameter. There are sizes in between these two, whenever possible it is good to have an equal assortment: each form must be accompanied by a suitably proportioned pot. See the illustration [Plate Six].

Among the ingredients used in the fabrication of sugar , hard wood charcoal is used, some lime, alum, and several other drugs of which we will not speak, ignorance and charlatanism having introduced their usage.

Preparation of the solution used to purify the sugar . After having gently corked the hole in the vessel, the bottom is covered with herbs and cut roots, highly prized by refiners: on this first bed, a four finger thick bed of charcoal is laid down, on which is put the same thickness of quicklime: the whole is covered with herbs, and the process is continued until the vessel is completely full; then boiling water is poured over it, which, after being impregnated with the salts from the charcoal and the absorbent clay of the lime, runs out through the opening of the vessel into a vase intended to receive it; this water must be redistilled several times, in order to fully charge it with salts; as there are several important remarks to be made on its composition, we will return to them at the end of this article, in order not to interrupt the proposed order.

Process concerning the fabrication of sugars . The juice coming from the canes crushed in the mills can be well or poorly conditioned, according to the good or bad combination of its principle constituents; the nature of the soil in which the canes were planted, their degree of maturity, and the season in which the harvest was made produce notable differences which must be taken into consideration if one wants to succeed.

It is at the inspection of the juice, once it has been transferred from the canoe to the large boiler, that the refiner decides, on a case by case basis, which ingredients, more or less, should be used. If the saline, aqueous, earthy and oily components are united in proper proportion, the juice will be found perfect, and can be worked easily; but if, on the contrary, the oily and aqueous components are poorly combined with the other two, the acid being found too be too developed, the juice then will be green and greasy; that is why it is necessary that there be in the boiler about a quart of charcoal and enough very fine powdered lime diluted with a sufficient quantity of the same juice.

Old canes and those which have survived a great drought produce a blackish, thick sap that is as if half-cooked by the heat of the sun; this sap contains a minimum of aqueous principles, and the acid is not detectible, being, so to speak, neutralized by the oily principle which is found there in overabundance.

The constitution of this juice requires at times that it be mixed with clear water, and that one add into the boiler a quart of charcoal, a half-liter of lime and a little powdered antimony mixed into the solution; the necessity of using this last drug is not well demonstrated; furthermore, one adds such a mediocre quantity, that it can do no harm, and one only uses it in the fabrication of sugar that one intends to leave raw without later bleaching. See the note at the end of this article . [*]

These precautions being taken and the juice heating in the boiler, it is necessary remove every bit of scum as it appears on the surface before it comes to the boil; one then lets it boil for an hour, after which it is transferred with ladles into the second boiler called la propre , taking care to pass it through a filter covering a perforated box; the large boiler is then refilled with a new batch of juice, and one continues the work without interruption.

The juice that has passed to la propre begins to boil, and one adds a bit of the aforementioned solution, skims with care, and continues the boiling until the large boiler is ready to be transferred, then making use of the ladles and filters, the juice from la propre must be passed through the flame, or the third boiler, to acquire a further degree of purification through the violence of fire, and from a little solution that is put into it several times, skimming it each time.

The juice now ceases to be such, having passed into the fourth boiler, it now becomes a syrup through the force of boiling, it continues to be purified with a bit of solution, and a skimmer with very small openings is used.

The battery, or fifth boiler being filled with syrup, and heated very violently, still more solution is added; the bubbles grow considerably, and the syrup can overflow if one is not careful to add a bit of butter or other fat from time to time while lifting the syrup with the skimmer to aerate it. This repeated maneuver brings down the bubbles and allows time for skimming, which must be done with as much care as possible.

The syrup nearing the final stage of cooking, the refiner, taking account of his observations during the large boiler stage, adds to the battery, if needed, a quart of lime in which some alum is dissolved, sometimes, in order to better defat the sugar , he adds a bit of powdered alum directly to the boiler.

It is by the shape and movement of the bubbles that they judge if the syrup is sufficiently cooked, and in order to better ascertain its readiness, they put a drop on their thumb, and joining the index or the middle finger to it, and pulling them apart, form a thread whose durability is the basis for judging whether the syrup is cooked; this is called “testing for doneness” once it is at the right point, it is necessary with extreme haste to remove the syrup for fear of burning it; it is emptied into the cooler while being stirred with the paddle, after which it is allowed to rest; at the end of about 15 minutes, a crust forms on the surface, which is broken to mix it thoroughly into the syrup, and then to allow it to rest again for local use, where they are content to make the sugar raw, without having the intention to whiten it; it is sufficient, by means of the bec-de-corbin, to transport the syrup from the cooler in a larger wooden canoe, where, after having stirred a little, it is left to cool until it can be handled; then the bec-de-corbin is used to pour it into large open mouthed barrels, pierced with a hole at the base, which stand upright on small joists over the cistern; the opening in these barrels must be corked with a cane planted upright, which, seeking to dry itself a little from the heat of the sugar , leaves a passage for that syrup which is not condensed to run out, separating it from the mass of the sugar .

The sugar that is to be clayed and bleached requires other precautions; one puts at each boiler a worker to watch it, adding absolutely no antimony to the solution; the forms mentioned above having soaked in the clear water for twenty four hours, and being well cleaned, one corks the hole very carefully with an oakum plug, and stores them point down in the refinery. See the figure M in the illustrations . All having been thus prepared, one puts into the cooler a sufficient quantity of syrup to fill the bec-de-corbin, this quantity being equally distributed among the forms, the number of which is fixed according to the capacity of the battery; one continues thusly to fill and empty the bec-de-corbin until the forms are all filled with syrup whose surface has a crust forming on it which must be broken and well integrated with the liquid underneath, which is done by stirring it with the paddle and by combing the interior of the forms to prevent the sugar that has already condensed from adhering there; this operation is performed twice in a half hour, after which the sugar is given time to solidify undisturbed.

After fifteen or sixteen hours, the forms are uncorked and an awl of seven or eight inches in length is inserted, in order to pierce the head of the loaf of sugar , in order to facilitate the run off of extra syrup; the point of the forms is then put back into the pots uncorked, and arranged along the side of the refinery where the pots will rest for a week, while the work of the boilers continues night and day.

The syrups that naturally run out of the pots are called heavy syrups , they are re-cooked to make the sugar called sugar syrup , whose quality is inferior to that of heavy syrups . The strained sugar syrup is a bitter syrup which is used to make Tafia, or sugar eau-de-vie.

Work on the sugar in the purgery according to the capacity of the steam room. The number of loaves of sugar which can be subjected to work being determined, one begins by visiting each and removing one after another from the forms and then putting each back in its original form; the defective ones are put aside for re-melting, and all the forms whose loaves have been chosen are transported into the purgery where they are placed perpendicularly, point down in new, empty pots, taking care to arrange the two sides of the building in an ordered manner and in divisions of six forms across and eight or ten in length, according to the size of the space, which is divided by this arrangement from one end to the other by a road about four or five feet across, and crossed by other smaller paths where one finds the divisions or beds of forms; this disposition resembles the arrangement of a hospital ward.

All the forms thus placed on their pots require a preparation before being covered with the necessary clay; one must, according to the language of the refiners, make the base, which is to say, to remove a dried crust which has formed on the sugar , and beneath which is found another, much thicker crust, separated from the first by a gap of about an inch: the dry crust is put aside to be re-melted with the thick syrup, and the thick crust is only useful for the making of tafia; the space which they had occupied in the forms being well cleaned with brushes, it is refilled to within a half-inch of the rim with a sufficient quantity of grated, white sugar , somewhat compacted and smoothed with a small iron trowel; all of this is covered with a layer of very clean, white clay that has been diluted to the consistency of light mortar.

After this preparation the windows must be closed to prevent the exterior air from drying out the clay; the water it contains filters imperceptibly through the molecules of the sugar , dilutes the extra syrup which colors it, and directs it through its weight to run into the pots placed under the forms; this is the fine syrup that will be re-cooked in the boilers situated for this reason at the ends of the purgery.

It is necessary to check on these clayed forms frequently, the humidity of the clay can have uneven effects and form gutters and cavities in the interior of the loaf; the remedy for this inconvenience is to put a bit of fine sand in the small crevices when they begin to appear on the surface of the clay; the sand absorbs the humidity and prevents it from precipitating too quickly in this area.

At the end of ten or twelve days, the clay itself being completely dried out, it must be removed completely, and separated with a knife on the side which touches the sugar , the rest being put aside to be used another time.

The place that the clay filled in the form being brushed and cleaned, the top of the sugar is hollowed out a bit with an awl to granulate about an inch all over the surface; then it is smoothed with the trowel and covered with a new layer of diluted clay, observing the same procedure as before. This second clay has the effect of precipitating out the rest of the coloring substance with which the point of the loaf of sugar might still be impregnated, and when the desired effect has been produced, the windows are opened to allow in air, the top of the forms are cleaned and the sugar is allowed to rest for eight to ten days, and if there is need, then the forms are loosened, which is to say they are upended on the block to remove the loaf whose point should be found to be dry and white, otherwise, it will be separated with a scythe, and put with the dry crusts and the thick syrups which must be re-cooked in the refinery.

The trimmed loaves, along with those which, because of their good form have remained intact, are carried to the steam room which should have been cleaned and heated several days ahead. It is necessary to make sure during the first two or three days to maintain a moderate fire. One must also attend to the loaves of sugar , and carefully separate the pieces which come off of them; if a piece falls on the iron box which serves as a furnace, a fire would result which would be difficult to put out. All being well disposed, the trap door and the door of the steam room are closed, the fire is stoked until the iron box glows red, and at the end of eight or ten days of continuous heat, the sugar will be found to be ready to come out, at that time it is beneficial to have good weather for the relocation under overhangs around the periphery of the purgery, after which it will be crushed in large wooden canoes prepared for the purpose; if there are found to be points that are less white than the body of the loaves, then they will be piled apart and these are called heads of sugar .

The well crushed and filtered sugar is put in casks and compressed by force with pestles: these casks being full and deep ordinarily weigh eight, ten, up to a dozen hundredweights. The Portuguese of Brazil use large boxes, which they call cassa , from which the sugar , whether raw, or bleached, takes the name of cassonade brown or white, from which the refiners of Europe make refined sugar , which they put in small loaves for sale at groceries.

Refined sugar in the style of the islands . To make this, the crumbs of the bleached sugar , the heads which were not bleached under the clay, and the dry crusts are used, and sometimes the raw sugar itself.

Having put equal parts of sugar and limed water into the boilers in the purgery, one heats and skims it very carefully, until there appears no more scum on the surface of the liqueur, then it is necessary to quickly pass it through a filter, and to continue to heat it, throwing several times beaten and diluted egg whites into the limed water, while being sure to skim it each time as carefully as possible; when no more waste comes to the surface, and the syrup appears clear, it is passed a second time through a proper filter, and one finishes by cooking it in the next boiler, until it has been cooked enough and can be removed from the fire, and put into the cooler; it is then stirred with a wooden knife, and after being sprinkled with a little refined sugar , it is left to rest before being poured into the forms: from here one proceeds as has already been described, and when it has been naturally well strained by means of the clay soaked with water, it is transported to the steam-room.

Those who make a large quantity of refined sugar use cow’s blood instead of eggs; this method is less expensive but the sugar often contracts a very bad odor.

It is easy to give refined sugar several degrees of perfection, by re-melting and cooking it in alum water and purifying it always with egg whites; it is then put in small forms that one covers with several small pieces of fabric impregnated with fresh water, which serve the function of the clay in the method already described; and when it is well drained it is then exposed to full sun, without putting it in the steam room, whose heat can redden it. This sugar is called royal sugar , it acquires much whiteness and density for its volume; but what it gains in appearance it loses considerably in its essential sweetness.

Basic observations on the preceding procedures . In the composition of the solution of which we have spoken, the goal is to remove a liquid impregnated with an alkali salt, and with an absorbent clay, both of which come from ashes and lime put in the vat between the beds of herbs to which are attributed great properties; the boiling water that is poured over it very effectively dissolves this salt and clay, but at the same time it affects the starch and the coloring part of the plants and the roots, foreign substances, which, in coloring the juice, impart to it a quality that is harmful to the perfection of the product. It is necessary therefore to remove them since they are useless and detrimental.

The extreme heat of the boiling water draws out a thick oil contained in the ashes and in the particles of carbon which are left therein; this colored, charred oil imparts a bad taste, and mixing, moreover, with saline parts, prevents them from acting on the acid and the oil that are overabundant in the juice.

It appears, therefore, that it would be better to use cold water, without using hot ashes out of the furnace, as is often done; after the cold water has been redistilled several times on the ashes, one could add enough lime to infuse it, after which it would be best to filter all of it, through a very narrow funnel.

If the solution thus prepared does not seem strong enough, one could concentrate it by evaporating it over the fire, until a taste on the tongue occasions a vivid sensation; by these means one could have a solution that is highly alkaline and very clear, and which would impart no foreign matter either to the juice or to the syrup.

The ash that is put into the large boiler must also, through its thick oil, color and alter the juice; this ash only reacts because of the salt that it contains, why not use this salt itself, separated from the heterogeneous matters that are harmful to its action? It is very easy to obtain in quantity, by means of a well-made solution that has been evaporated to dryness, this salt not having the nature to crystallize.

Because of the property that fixed alkalis and absorbent clays have of bonding tightly to acids and linking with fats, it follows that the salt of which we speak, being mixed with the limed water and put into the boilers in the proper proportion, would grab onto the acid in the juice; that which makes the clay absorbent is contained in the limed water; if one adds to it a new dose of salt and absorbent clay, these substances, finding no further acid, will act directly on the overabundant oil in the sugar , and will form a soapy compound which, rising to the surface of the juice because of the heat, will resemble all of the other fatty wastes that the refiner easily removes with his skimmer.

As it is inconceivable that anyone would every intentionally give sugar an emetic or diaphoretic quality, one cannot see what other effect the antimony that is employed in the solution can produce, happily the ordinary dose of this substance is so small that it can do no harm.

One will observe in passing that the fixed alkalis have the faculty of attaching themselves to the sulfur in the antimony, with which they form a composite known as hépar (alkaline sulfur), which is known to be a solvent of metallic substances and as a result, of the reguline part of the antimony; this set out and the solution being close at hand, a kermes mineral can result, emetic or diaphoretic at a high enough dose; this should certainly be better placed in apothecary shops than in sugar boilers.

If the powdered alum that is thrown into the battery contributes to degreasing the syrup, there remains very little in the total when the sugar takes form; since this drug can alter the quality, one should it only use with circumspection.

The clay that is used to whiten the sugar should be thick, white, and without any contamination of rocks or sand, not coloring the water in which it is soaked and producing no effervescence with the acids; it is a kind of clay similar to that which is used to make pipes in Rouen.

We noted above that the loaves of sugar transported into the purgery were clayed twice only; a third operation would be harmful, because the water that the clay has been soaked with, finding no more syrup with which to mix, would act directly on the granules of sugar , partially dissolving them.

After the details of the operations above, it is easy to ascertain the nature of sugar , which is nothing other than the essential salt of the cane reduced to a solid mass by the means of cooking and crystallization: this salt, through a new operation, can be formed into beautiful solid crystals, transparent, facetted, this is what the confectioners call candied sugar , and here is the process, following the method of several individuals in the French islands of America.

Having dissolved the white sugar in a sufficient quantity of very weak limed water, the solution is poured into a copper basin set over a fire and when the liquid is warm, beaten egg whites are thrown in, which clarifies it and then it is very carefully skimmed, after which the liquid is passed through a very clean funnel and continues to be cooked; this is the time to prepare a form in which are arranged several small sticks that are very clean, on top of each other pointing in different directions: the mouth of the form is lightly corked with a bit of straw and it is suspended in the steam room point down, care is taken to put a vase below it ready to receive the syrup that drains off.

When the syrup that is in the basin is found to be sufficiently cooked, it is allowed to cool a bit, after which it must be poured into the mold, the top of which is covered; the sugar, in cooking, attaches itself around the small sticks in groups of beautiful solid crystals, angular, and transparent like glass, presumably this is the same principle on which the confectioners work.

The tendency of sugar canes to spoil in twenty four hours if they are not used when they are cut, and the extreme rapidity with which they pass from alcoholic fermentation to acidic fermentation, are the subjects of observation beyond the scope and length of this article; we will speak more properly on these subjects when we treat the spirits drawn from sugar by means of distillation. See Rum or Taffia .

^* Refining of sugar in our refineries . This is how I understand it, more or less. There is in the sap of the sugar canes, as in several other plant saps, one part which crystallizes and one which does not: (I should say in passing, that that part of the mucous body which crystallizes, could well be in mucous bodies in general, that which is in resins, flowers of benzoin, and camphor, and in essential oils, this body of a singular nature, observed by Boyle, which clouds transparency, when kept for a long time.) Is it to this overabundance of oil, of acid, of clay, that one must attribute the difficulty that one part of the mucous body has in crystallizing? I do not know. Be that as it may, sugar that we want for our uses, sugar properly called, is that part of the sap of plants which crystallizes, extracted and separated from the mixture of molasses or syrup which does not crystallize; the aim of the work of refineries is therefore to separate these two parts one from the other, and this work is entirely contained in two points: 1. To cause to crystallize the greatest possible quantity of sugar : 2. To remove as fully as possible all of the molasses. One attains the primary objective by causing all of the extra water to evaporate by way of cooking; and the second, in washing the already crystallized sugar with water which removes all of the molasses, because molasses is much more highly soluble than crystallized sugar . It is not necessary to follow all of the details of the operations of the refiner to see that they all come down to fulfilling these two aims.

1. After having been expressed from the cane, the sap is put in boilers where it will evaporate to the point of crystallization, that is to say, the water that remains is in too small a quantity to maintain cold dissolution, and that it thus could be crystallized by a single cooling process, without further evaporation; each small crystal is therefore isolated, without connection with the other crystals, surrounded on all sides by a sticky syrup, such that it is all highly friable and greasy to the touch. This is the state of raw or muscovado sugar .

2. Since the small crystals in the muscovado are very tenuously linked together, and since the quantity of molasses is quite considerable, if one tried to run the water through the entire mass to remove the molasses, the majority of the sugar would also be dissolved and removed with the molasses. An additional cooking gives more body and mass to the crystals, and diminishes the proportion of the molasses in the whole: the sugar is re-dissolved, and put back to evaporate in the boilers: one uses limed water to dissolve it, and then it is clarified with an egg white, or with cow’s blood. It is a fact that after this operation, the proportion of sugar to molasses is changed; but for what reason? Does the limed water supply the molasses with the clay that it is lacking in order to crystallize? Does it absorb a part of the greasy matter which is in overabundance, or does it serve to absorb the acid which is developed by the heat of the fire? I would willingly believe that the sugar is entirely formed in the sap of the plant, and that it is converted subsequently into molasses, rather than the molasses into sugar ; the molasses, being always soluble and fluid, always dissolves a little of the sugar submerged in it, and imparts to it the slight beginning of fermentation which partially decomposes it; it is to this that I believe one must attribute the loss or waste which the raw sugar suffers when it is transported from the islands. The sugar itself is subject to some loss, if it is kept for a long time in a place exposed to humidity; it initiates a faint action of decomposition; it yellows, little by little, it becomes greasy, it must be refined again, and it begins to turn back into molasses; I guess that the cooking, without increasing the quantity of sugar already formed in the plant, diminishes the quantity of molasses and breaks it down, precisely as the boiling action decomposes in general the mucilage and the essential oils, of which one part always reduces to clay every time it is put back on the fire to clarify; this clay forms the scum and is removed by the clarification of the egg whites: for it is not true, as M. R. said, that the egg white serves to remove grease or molasses; since it is more soluble than the sugar itself, all the more reason that the molasses must pass like the sugar through the net that the coagulated egg white forms; the molasses can only be removed when it is broken down and reduced to clay through continuous boiling; with regard to the limed water, I believe that it serves only to absorb acid which is developed by the action of the fire, to prevent it from reacting to the oil, and to give to the matter a smoky flavor; perhaps also this acid, if it remains free, could act on the sugar itself, and break it down partially. I attribute therefore the change in proportion between the sugar and the molasses to the fact that the boiling action acts more strongly on the molasses to break it down, than it does on the sugar , and I believe that the same causes, the same perfection in its combination which causes the crystallization of the sugar , and which makes it more soluble, also makes it more resistant to decomposition: it is not that I want to resolve absolutely that the limed water does not contribute to the crystallization of some parts of the molasses by furnishing them with clay; but this only a vague conjecture, which would need to be proven, and which is even less indicated by the phenomena, than that the absolute quantity of sugar diminishes more than it is augmented by each cooking.

3. We have seen all that the cooking can do to change the proportion of sugar to the molasses, and to obtain the greatest quantity possible of crystallized sugar . It is now a matter only of causing the crystallization and of separating the molasses which remains. Cooking is continued until the syrup is at the point of having lost all of its dissolving water, and retains no longer its fluidity except by means of the action of the boiler. If it is evaporated beyond this point, the too thick [blackstrap] molasses would become an obstacle to the movement of the parts of the sugar which must arrange themselves into crystals, and the two substances would remain intermingled. Refiners recognize this point precisely by the consistency of the syrup that they pull out between their fingers; it is evident that this is knowledge that one cannot acquire by simple experimentation: it is in this that the secret of their art consists; it is the last thing that they teach their students, and to teach this beautiful secret, they must be given four hundred francs. The syrup once reduced to this consistency, it is only a matter of cooling it to cause the sugar to crystallize; it is poured into inverted conical molds to get this result. There the sugar crystallizes, but always amid molasses. In this state it forms a solid mass, but one riddled with an innumerable quantity of pores in which the molasses is retained by the force of the capillary pipe, augmented by the viscosity which it has acquired through the cooking of the sugar , through the evaporation of the extra water. In order to separate this molasses, it is necessary to render it fluid enough so that it can run off through the mass of the sugar , as if through a filter, and to drip out of the tip of the inverted cone, in which the sugar has crystallized. The tip is pierced for this reason, and its opening is placed over a vase intended to receive the molasses. The water poured over the base of the loaf of inverted sugar , will push the molasses downward as it filters through the pores of the sugar . Although the sugar is much less soluble than the molasses, nevertheless if this water passes in too great a quantity, and too rapidly between the crystals, it could not fail to dissolve also the greatest part of the sugar crystals, and to wash it out pell-mell with the molasses. In order to only give the molasses the precise quantity of water necessary to render it more fluid and to wash it away without attacking the sugar , in place of pouring the water over the base of the loaf of sugar one pours it from clay that has been diluted and mixed to the consistency of porridge. This porridge contains much more water than the clay can retain; it lets it escape, therefore, but in small quantity, and slowly. The upper, dampened molasses pushes the lower with its weight, the latter begins to pour off, before even the water has gotten down to it, some new water escapes from the clay, and continues to bathe the filter while removing the rest of the molasses. As the water has lost most of its force along the route it has traveled, and the clay lets more escape, the conical form of the base fills up with a greater and greater quantity, in proportion to the molasses which is found in the lower portions of the inverted cone. The thickest molasses has passed from the bottom, pressed by the descent of the upper portions of the molasses, that which is most fluid runs off by itself, and there only remains a very small quantity at the tip of the cone, where the force of the capillary pipe retains it. Also the tip of the loaf of sugar is less fine than the sugar taken from two or three inches above it. One can see by this detail that the conical form of the loaves of sugar is not ideal for the drainage of the molasses. The clay porridge has still another usage than to titrate the water into the molasses, that is to form a crust which maintains its moisture and to prevent the evaporation of water which comes through the loaf of sugar . One can well see that the more or less diluted porridge, forming a more or less thick layer, determines the quantity of water which must pass into the loaf of sugar ; and that experience alone can teach the precise state that will be observed beneath it, and which necessarily varies according to the degree of cooking of the sugar , the form and the height of the mold, the nature of the clay that is used, etc. Despite the unequal solubility of sugar and of molasses, the water removes a bit of sugar with the molasses, and there remains also in the sugar a bit of molasses. Also the molasses is re-cooked to again remove the sugar , and the sugar to further refine it. That which has only been refined once is called cassonade or clayed sugar ; it is passed through the process several more times in order to make royal sugar . One can see that the molasses plays precisely the same role in the refining of sugar as sea water plays in the purification of niter. I do not know why M. R. calls molasses fatty matter nor why he imagines that the clay degreases the sugar , by way of the property that it has of bonding to oils. The clay is only applied externally to the already crystallized sugar , and if one mixes it with the sugar in the cooking, it would be very difficult, in view of the extreme separation to which it is susceptible and the viscosity of the syrup, to extricate it.