292 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



manufactories here, and will doubtless exert a great influence on an 

 extended introduction into the United States, and it is adapted to 

 extracting the crystaline sugar from either sugar cane or beet root. 



" Without entering into an extended description of this invention, I 

 may say that the process differs radically from the old methods, their 

 leading principle being to obtain the juice contained in the cane or beet 

 root, and to this end they employed repeated grinding, or maceration, 

 or powerful pressure. 



" Mr. Roberts' 'diffusion process' does not aim at obtaining the juice 

 contained in the cells of the cane or beet root, but to extract only the 

 crystalizable sugar contained in that juice, and to leave whatever else 

 it contains in the cells. To accomplish this purpose, the sugar cane or 

 beet roots are cut into small slices and put into a number of vats, 

 which are connected by pipes running from the bottom of one vat to the 

 top of the next succeeding. Water of a certain temperature, and of a 

 quantity proportioned to the weight of the cane or beet root in the 

 vats, is mixed with the material in the first vat, and allowed to remain 

 until it takes up a portion of the saccharine matter, or, so to speak, until 

 the sugar in the vat is equalized between the water and the cane or beet 

 root. That is to say, if the beet root contains eight per cent, of saccha- 

 rine matter, the water will take up four per cent. This water is then 

 forced by hydraulic pressure into the second vat, filled with beets. 



"It already contains four per cent, of sugar; but the beets having 

 eight per cent., it will again equalize itself, and when forced into the 

 third vat will contain six per cent, of saccharine matter. In this way 

 the water becomes more and more impregnated with saccharine matter, 

 until it contains almost as much as the beet itself. To return to the 

 first vat, we find that the first application of water extracted one-half, or 

 four per cent, of the sugar. When this water was forced into the second 

 vat the fresh water which forced it out and supplied its place extracted 

 two per cent, more before the saccharine matter became equalized be- 

 tween the water and the beets. This water is then forced into the 

 second vat, and the fresh water which supplies its place finds the beets 

 containing but two per cent, of saccharine matter, and the next filling 

 finds but one per cent., and in this way the sugar is extracted to within 

 one-half of one per cent. 



"It is said that by this process the raw material is much purer than 

 when extracted by any other method — that from the same beets one-half 

 per cent, more crystalline sugar is obtained than by the applicaton of 

 pressure. The expenses for cloth, and the cleaning and renewing it, are 

 entirely done away with; the expenses for motive power and machinery 

 is considerably reduced, and the expense of manual labor is much less, 

 requiring but one-quarter of the number of laborers necessary for the 

 pressing purpose. 



" In the United States, where labor is so expensive, this innovation 

 must prove of incalculable importance. The only thing required in this 

 new process not necessary in the old is an additional supply of water, 

 an article tolerably plenty and cheap wherever this manufacture is 

 likely to be introduced in our country. 



"That this process is really the great improvement claimed no longer 

 admits of dispute. Mr. Roberts has thoroughly tested it in his factory, 

 and has adopted it, as have also six other factories, two in Austria, two 

 in Prussia, one in Russia, and one in Bavaria." 



