[ 308 ] 



LVI. Ol^ervations and Advices respecting Improvemenis 

 compatible iinth the quickest Manufacture of Muscovada 

 Sugar, and conducive to the Melioration of the Rum. By 

 Bryan Higgins, M. D,* 



OouND cane-juice consists of water, sugar, deliquescent 

 sweet, herbaceous matter, carbonic acid, and n]e!as!jes acid : 

 and some juices contain variable quantities of other ingre- 

 dients, which are not yet to be noticed. 



In these pharmaceutic ingredients subsist the primary 

 or chemical principles of many vegetable acids. But expe- 

 rience shows, that the compositipn of attractive forces, re- 

 sulting from such proportions of the principles as take place 

 in the recent juice, tend chicflv to the formation of an acicj 

 similar to vinegar, and of an additional quantity of carbonic 

 acid and melasses acid. 



For in the course of ] 2 or IS hours the juice mantles by 

 the rise and escape of carbonic acid in the elastic state : at 

 an earlier period it smells sour or acetous: and by the effect 

 of such delay on the sugar producible from it, it is certajii 

 that there is an addition to the original quantity of the me- 

 lasses acid. 



This last is the ingredient which most powerfully impedes 

 the crystallization and separation of the saccharine uiatter 

 from the deliquescent sweet and mother-liquor called me- 

 lasses. As it lessens the quantity of saccharine crystals, and 

 increases that of melasses mother-liquor; and as it is highly 

 probable that melasses contain the like acid as a constituent 

 principle, I give it the temporary name of melasses acid. 



Herbaceous matter is that of which some part shows itself 

 in the yawing, and more in the boiling of juice which had 

 been cleared from gros^ filth by filtration. It is that which 

 we endeavour to separate from the saccharine liquor by yaw- 

 ing and skimming. 



The herbaceous matter has some analogy to gummy re^ 

 Bins, but has a much nearer similitude, in cl;t.mical cha- 

 racter, to the dregs of refined indigo, or that vc^^etable sub- 



* From Part I. of Dr. Higgins's O^istrvations, &c. published in Jamaica. 



stance 



