CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 167 



Belgium were appointed by the two governments, and in their pres- 

 ence experiments were made which tested the efficacy and value of 

 the new method. The process for some time was kept secret, but M. 

 Melsens having obtained a patent from the French and Belgian gov- 

 ernments, a memoir has been published revealing the essential facts of 

 the discovery and its method of application. The importance of this 

 discovery and its bearing upon the interests of this country, induced 

 Hon. S. G. Clemsen, Charge d? Affaires of the United States at Bel- 

 gium, to transmit to the Secretary of State a full translation of the 

 memoir. 



The following condensed and popular account of the discovery, 

 with remarks on the same, we copy from the New York Journal of 

 Commerce. 



" In the phenomena of the crystallization of sugar, we encounter a 

 series of anomalies which have baffled the efforts of the greatest 

 chemists, to reduce the incoherent facts to a consistent theory. Ber- 

 zelius, Dumas, Proust, and other names known in the higher walks of 

 practical science, are associated with investigations into the elementary 

 properties of saccharine juice, and the most effective method of turn- 

 ing those properties to advantage, in the manufacture and extraction 

 of solid sugar. Although the improvements made in this branch of 

 the industrial arts, within the present century, have been numerous and 

 great, they have been very far from approaching the point of excel- 

 lence attained by other arts, concerned in supplying the luxuries, 

 wants, and necessities of mankind. In fact, it has long been recog- 

 nized that, among the arts of production, it was in the manufacture of 

 sugar that there remained to be taken one of those strides, which im- 

 mortalize a name, and signalize an epoch. This stride has recently 

 been taken by a young Belgian chemist, of the name of Melsens, pro- 

 fessor in the Veterinary and Agricultural School of the State, at 

 Brussels. It is a certainty that Melsens' discovery is destined to ex- 

 ercise an influence upon the production of one of our national staples, 

 which will be attended with a vast accession of national wealth. The 

 principal features of this discovery may be compressed into a small 

 space. 



" It is a well-established fact that the sugar-cane, when in a heal- 

 thy condition, contains no sugar that is not crystallizable. It is also 

 known that the extraction of this solid is easily effected by means of 

 weak alcohol, which first dissolves it, and then leaves it, by evapora- 

 tion, in the form of pure and colorless crystals. But, together with 

 crystallizable sugar, there also coexist in the cane certain fermenta- 

 tives capable of determining a transformation of the sugar into other 

 products. The action of these agents is only rendered possible by 

 placing them in' contact with the sugar by means of water, after hav- 

 ing been previously exposed to the influence of the external air. 



"In bitter almonds there also exists a substance which may be 

 crystallized by alcohol without losing its purity. But the effect is en- 

 tirely different when water is used in the place of alcohol. This sub- 

 stance found in bitter almonds (amygdaline) disappears or undergoes 

 a metamorphosis, and by the change various new substances are 



