CHEMICAL ACTION OF LIME. 13s 
venting the coagulation of the albuminous matter) in caus- 
ing the crystals to be small, ill defined, and difficult of 
drainage, and although it is not certain that it causes di- 
rectly the conversion of cane into uncrystallizable sugar 
during evaporation, as some have supposed, it is other- 
wise sufficiently obnoxious, and lime, by saturating it, ren- 
ders it comparatively harmless. 
2d. Lime in excess converts grape sugar in cane juice 
into glucic acid, glucate of lime, and finally molassate of 
lime, a peculiar dark-colored soluble substance, uncrystalli- 
zable, and without sweetness. In making sugar, this trans- 
formation is not to be dreaded, inasmuch as the molassate 
of lime in solution is much more liquid than the dissolved 
grape sugar from which it was formed, and facilitates 
drainage by rendering the molasses less viscid than a solu- 
tion of grape sugar. 
3d. Upon cane sugar the action of an excess of lime is 
much less energetic. Four parts of sugar by weight unite 
with one of lime, forming sugar lime, or saccharate of lime, 
a soluble substance, which becomes coagulable by heat and 
passes into the scum. But unless the excess of lime used 
be very great, the quantity of sugar lime formed will be 
very small, and in a heated solution containing both cane 
and grape sugar, the lime does not attack both, but decom- 
poses the grape sugar, leaving the cane sugar uninjured. 
4th. During evaporation, the decomposition of a small 
quantity of neutral salts of ammonia and potash present in 
the juice is effected by lime, which has a stronger affinity 
for the acids than those bases, the ammonia being given off 
in the steam, and the potash remaining in the solution. 
The potash, if in considerable quantity, would have a tend- 
ency to render the sugar deliquescent, but as the propor- 
tion of potash thus liberated is very small, the influence 
which it exerts is inappreciable, or reduced to nothing, if, as 
12 
