114 PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE. 
allowed to project through the holes into the inside of the 
box two or three inches. Range the boxes in order on the 
supporting rack, around the sides of the room, and over 
the dripping troughs, which are so arranged as to convey 
the molasses into a painted wooden or tin gutter, and 
thence into a cistern. The dripping troughs may be simply 
short open conductors of the same materials. 
In twenty-four hours after the thick syrup has been 
passed into the erystallizing box from the cooler, the for- 
mation of crystals of small size will generally have com- 
menced. They may then be seen along the edges of the 
yet liquid mass, but on the bottom of the box they will 
be found in greatest abundance, and may be detached and 
brought to the surface at the shallow sides of the box, by 
means of a knife blade or the wooden scraper, which should 
be always at hand. The last-named implement is simply 
a long paddle vf ash or hickory wood, with a stout handle 
and thin blade. With this the fine crystals should be 
loosened from the bottom and sides, and stirred into the 
mass, so as to distribute them as equally as possible through 
it, that they may act as nuclei for the formation of larger 
crystals. Generally in twenty-four hours after this opera- 
tion, and often in less time, the crystallization will have per- 
vaded the entire mass. When this is found to be so, then 
gently withdraw the stoppers and permit the molasses to 
drain. The sugar will be dry in ten days or less thereafter. 
It may then be shoveled into boxes or barrels, and the 
crystallizing boxes refilled. 
