96 



The sugar obtained from the sugar beet, the sugar cane, the maple 

 and the sorghum, differs only in the kind and quantity of impurities it 

 contains. The pure sugar from all of these sources is identical. It is 

 commonly called cane sugar, sucrose, the name being derived from the 

 plant from which it was in the past principally made. In addition to 

 sucrose, several other, however, less important kinds of sugar are on the 

 market. The two principal of these are dextrose and kevulose, sugars 

 resembling each other in many respects. The former is now extensively 

 made from Indian corn by transforming the starch in it with dilute 

 sulphuric acid and neutralizing the excess of acid with lime. It is largely 

 used in compounding the various mixtures sold as syrup on the market 

 few of which are now pure concentrated cane juice. Honey is a mixture 

 of both these sugars, dextrose generally predominating. All sweet 

 fruits contain one or other or both of the ii. Cane sugar when treated 

 with a dilute acid yields an equal quamrty of both of them in invert sugar. 

 Even continuous heating at the boiling point of water has a tendency to 

 transform ordinary sugar into invert sugar. Both dextrose and lasvulose 

 crystallize with great difficulty. If present in a solution of sucrose they 

 probably exercise a retarding influence on the crystallization of that 

 sugar. Any agent, therefore, having a tendency to invert any of 

 the sugar in the juice or syrup is doubly objectionable. Sulphur 

 dioxide in solution has this tendency, especially when hot. Long 

 boiling at high temperatures has also the same tendency. Both should 

 be avoided as much as possible on this account. 



In addition to the three sugars already named, at least seven others 

 occur in nature, among these are milk sugar and malt sugar, lactose and 

 maltose. But several times the number are known to chemists, some of 

 them are fermentation or decomposition products, others have been made 

 by the synthetical method. However, so far as I know, no cane sugar 

 has ever been made by either of these ways. The stories sometimes 

 heard that cane sugar is now made for commercial purposes from rags 

 and sawdust are a myth. Perhaps they have arisen from the fact that 

 dextrose is made from starch and possibly, at times, from <uch sub 

 stances as I have just named. 



Sugars belong to the caibohydrates, a class of compounds ably 

 treated by Mr. F. T. Shutt, M.A., in a lecture on the Chemistry of 



