114 



portunities of examining it in Spain^ contains gluten, or green 

 fecula, gum, extractive, malic acid, sulphate of lime, and 

 sugar. The last exists in two states; the one capable of 

 crystallizing^ and the other known as molasses, found only in 

 a liquid state. The former is obtained by evaporation ; the 

 latter is combined with vegetable matter, which, thickening 

 by heat, prevents the crystallizing of the saccharine matter. 

 It is from the proportion of vegetable matter being in excess, 

 that the juice of Canes, raised in newly opened rich land, 

 yield little else than a dark liquid mass. In dry parishes, on 

 the contrary, and in old lands, where the plant is free from 

 any rank luxuriance, the proportion of molasses is small, and 

 almost the whole of the juices is capable, by evaporation, of 

 being converted into crystallizable sugar. As illustrative of 

 this, it may be noticed, that grapes, which in the south of 

 Europe yield sugar, refuse to do it in the north, although to 

 the taste they be equally sweet. Thus, maturation has the 

 effect of dissolving the combination between the vegetable 

 and saccharine principles ; increasing the proportion of 

 crystallizable sugar, by diminishuig that of the molasses. 



The sugar loaves are afterwards taken out and dried in a stove for ten days; 

 after which they arc pulverised, packed, and exported to Europe, where they 



11 



are still farther purified. 



It is not perhaps generally known that silex is produced hy the stem ana 

 leaves of this plant in greater quantity than Ly almost any other. A large spe- 

 cimen oC almost pure glass was sent to me from the Mauritius by Charles Tel- 

 folr, Esq. : it was part of a mass many inches thick, which from time to time i8 

 formed and covers the bottom of the furnace where the Canes are burned. The 

 specimen was accompanied by the following remarks in Mr. Telfair's letter; 

 •' I send you a piece of the cinder or slag, which is produced by the combustion 

 of the ' h&gasse' of the Sugar Cane, — that is, the Cane after having passed 

 through the mill by which the juice is entirely expressed. It is, in this state, | 



the only fuel that we use for boiling our sugar. The fire is very fierce, and tne 

 ashes run into the stony silicious form this specimen exhibits. It would appear 

 from this, that silex is produced in considerable quantity by the rind of the canCj j 



and then is fused into glass by the alkali in the ashes, formed by combustion. 

 The quantity of this glassy matter produced in our furnaces is considerable, ao» 

 TTi^re in proportion when the canes are raised in dry and hot soils, than in the code 

 ^nd more humid quarters." — En. 





