SUGAR AND SUGAR MAKING. 89 
brings it from the bagasse house. It thus lies convenient 
to be picked up by the fireman, and pushed, by the arm 
full, into the furnace mouth. 
The pans are arranged in a line along this flue, ex- 
cepting the oblong sheet iron or copper defecators ; these 
come last, and stand side by side. The flue, before 
reaching them, spreads, and is divided by party walls 
into three parts or parallel flues, each the size of the 
main flue; each of these passages is supplied with a 
sliding damper, hung and balanced by a weight, so that 
the fire on its way to the great chimney may be shut off 
from one or other of them at will, by dropping the damper 
in front of it. The center flue has nothing over it, and 
is the regular course the fire would take in going direct 
to the chimney. Over the other two flues the defecators 
are set, so that by dropping the damper in the middle 
flue, and raising one of the side ones, the fire is turned 
aside, and passing under the defecator, the damper of 
which has been raised, heats its contents, It may then 
be turned under the other by the same means. When 
both are heated, the fire may be shut off at the instant, 
and allowed to follow its old course to the chimney. 
It is well to understand the proper setting of these 
defecators, as on them, in a great measure, depends the 
success of future operations. The flue is so built as to 
allow the defecators, which are shallow, never over 
eighteen or twenty inches deep, to discharge their con- 
tents, by a pipe, into the first “clarifier,” which is dis- 
tant sufficiently to allow of a free passage between it 
and the defecators; these have a platform of stone or 
brick around them, to allow a man to walk about and 
