164 THE COMMON METHOD BY HEAT. 
want of success in crystallizing it, is due the presence of 
just those impurities which heat alone cannot remove. 
Popular opinion, guided by an experience of more than 
six years with the common method of defecation by heat, 
and by the representations of persons pecuniarily interested 
in securing its continued adoption, is now more unsettled 
than ever it has been in regard to the practicability of 
sugar production from Northern cane. No progress has 
been made in this pursuit commensurate with its import- 
ance, or with the resnlts reasonably to have been antici- 
pated from the zealous efforts of the many practical men 
that it numbers among its supporters and friends. If we 
seek the cause of this condition of things we shall find it 
partly, at least, in the injudicious teachings of some who 
should know better, leading to misdirected efforts and un- 
promising results. 
In the face of repeated analyses by the most trustworthy 
and eminent chemists, and in spite of convictions which 
a candid examination could not fail to impress upon their 
own minds, we yet find some advocates of the “heat” 
theory strenuously asserting that it is only the inferior, and 
practically uncrystallizable grape sugar which sorghum 
juice contains, and hence the manifest impropriety of any 
further attempts toward advancement on this line. 
Others profess to have reached the “ultima thule” of 
discovery by sailing in a different direction; they denounce 
loudly all “ chemicals,” even to the use of lime, in satura- 
ting the free acid; attribute to heat almost miraculous 
powers, and then gravely proceed to inform us that the 
talisman whereby this giant of the elements may be aroused 
to such unwonted activity is intrusted entirely to their 
own keeping, or, in other words, that there is only one 
form of evaporating pan upon which heat as an agent in 
clarification can be used with success. 
