80 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



of states, the courses of rivers, and the sites of the manufactories of 

 beet sugar. It appears that there are in Russia, 430 factories ; in 

 France, 288 ; in Prussia, 114 ; in Austria, 114; in the rest of Ger- 

 many, 30; in Belgium, 27; in Poland, 21 ; making in all 1,024 fac- 

 tories. These facts may give an idea of the vast extent of the sugar 

 industry in Europe. Since the discovery by the Prussian naturalist, 

 Markgraf, of the mode of extracting sugar from beets and potatoes, it 

 has been an object of the policy of the different European states to 

 protect this industry by high duties. Though the article produced is 

 insipid in comparison with the cane-sugar, the price is exorbitant. 

 In France, for instance, the price of common sugar, such as that 

 used by ladies for preserving fruits, is sixteen sous a pound, that of 

 table sugar twenty, and that of the better sorts between twenty-five 

 and thirty. In Prussia the prices are lower, but the sugar is not so 

 good, being in great part manufactured from potatoes. It costs from 

 ten to fifteen cents a pound, but, as a sweetener, is equivalent to only 

 half the quantity of cane-sugar. Several attempts have been made to 

 manufacture beet-sugar in the United States ; they have all proved 

 failures. Future attempts of a similar kind must also fail ; for the 

 beet-sugar is nowhere made for less than eight or ten cents, even in 

 Europe where labor is so cheap, and cannot compete with the product 

 from the cane. 



Beet-Sugar in France. The following statistics exhibit the prod- 

 uce and consumption of beet-root sugar in France, from Jan. 1 to 

 Sept. 1, 1850: Number of manufactories in full operation, 288; 

 kilogrammes of sugar produced, 62,175,213, or 23,000,000 more than 

 last year. Sugar in bond and sold for consumption, 64,644,594 kilo- 

 grammes. 



MEAT-BISCUIT. 



A LETTER from Dr. Ashbel Smith was read to the American Asso- 

 ciation, at Charleston, giving an account of a newly invented prepara- 

 tion, called " meat-biscuit." The inventor, Mr. Borden, " claims, 

 as you will see, to have discovered a process for combining, in a cheap, 

 convenient, and portable form, all the nutritive portions of animal and 

 farinaceous food. His invention has the further advantages, that all 

 refuse, excrementitious, and superfluous matters are rejected ; and it 

 can be preserved fresh, without condiments or preservatives of any 

 kind, for years, and in all climates. care only being taken that it be 

 kept dry. From several satisfactory trials, it is proved that Mr. Bor- 

 den's process is equally adapted for combining any farina, any flour or 

 meal, with any of the meats of the animal kingdom used by man for 

 food ; but he has hitherto confined himself to combining wheat-flour 

 with the flesh of neat cattle. I will briefly allude to the manner of 

 preparing the biscuit. The nutritive portions of the beef, or other 

 meat, immediately on its being slaughtered, are, by long boiling, separ- 

 ated from the bones and fibrous and cartilaginous matters. The water 

 holding the nutritious matters in solution is evaporated to a consider- 

 able degree of spicitude ; this is then made into a dough with firm 



