Sketch of the Hiftory of Sugar. 295 
that it was brought from Arabia and India, but the 
beft from the latter country. He defcribes it as a 
kind of honey, obtained from reeds, of a white 
colour, refembling gum, and brittle when preffed 
by the teeth, and found in pieces of the fize of a 
hazel nut. It was ufed in medicine only.+} 
Salmafius, in his Pliniane Exercitationes, fays, 
that Pliny relates, upon the authority.of Juba the 
hiftorian, that fome reeds grew in the fortunate 
Tflands which increafed to the fize of trees, and 
yielded a liquor that was fweet and agreeable to the 
palate. This plant he concludes to be the fugar 
cane; but I think the paflage in Pliny } fcarcely 
implies fo much. — Hitherto we have had no 
account of any artificial preparation of fugar, by 
boiling or otherwife ; but there is a paffage in Sta- 
tius', that feems, if the reading be genuine, to allude 
to the boiling of fugar, and is thought to refer im- 
mediately thereto by Stephens in his Thefaurus.* 
Arrian, 
+ Saccaron Arabia fert, fed laudatius India. Ett autem 
mel in arundinibus colleétum, gummium modo candidum, 
dentibus fragile, amplifimum nucis avellanz m2gnitudine, 
ad medicine tantum ufum, 
Piin. Hiftor, Natural. (. xii, Cap. Vili 
$s Poin. Hift. Nat. lib. VI, Cap, xxxii, 
* Et quas precoquit Ebofita cannas 
Largis gratuitum cadit rapinis, 
. Star. Sylv. I. vi. 1g, 
Haud dubic {inquit Stephanus) cannas intelligit ex 
quibus 
4 A, D, circ, 80, 
