64 



On Sugar. — The sugar in about three weeks grows tole- 

 rably dry and fah' ; it is then said to be cured, and the pro- 

 cess is finished. Sugar thus obtained is called Muscovado, 

 and is the raw material from which the British sugar bakers 

 make their loaf or refined lump. There is another sort 

 which was formerly much approved in Great Britain for 

 domestic purposes, and was generally known by the name 

 of Lisbon sugar ; it is fair, but of a soft nature, and in the 

 West Indies is called clayed sugar. The process is as fol- 

 lows. A quantity of sugar from the cooler is put into coni- 

 cal pots or pans, called by the French formes, with the 

 points downwards, having a hole about half an inch in dia- 

 meter at the bottom for the molasses to drain through, but 

 which at first is closed with a plug. When the sugar in 

 these pots is cool and becomes a fixed body, which is dis- 

 coverable by the middle of the top falling in (usually about 

 twelve hours from the first potting of the sugar), the plug 

 is taken out and the pot placed over a large jar intended to 

 receive the syrup or molasses that drains from it. In this 

 state it is left as long as the molasses continues to drop, 

 which it will do from twelve to fourteen hours ; when a 

 stratum of clay is spread on the sugar and moistened with 

 water, which oozing imperceptibly through the pores of the 

 clay, unites intimately with and dilutes the molasses, con- 

 sequently more of it comes away than from sugar cured in 

 the hogshead, and the sugar of course becomes so much the 

 whiter and purer. A pound of sugar from a gallon of raw 

 juice or liquor is reckoned in Jamaica a very good yielding. 



The loss of weight in claying is about one third. Thus a 

 pot of 60 lbs. is reduced to 40 lbs. But if the molasses 

 which is drawn ofi" in this practice be reboiled it ^vill give 

 near 40 per cent of sugar, so that the real loss is little more 

 than one fourth. East India sugars being ranked among 

 the Company's imports as manufactured goods, pays a duty 

 of £37. 16s. 3d. per cent ad valorem, on sale. 



