CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE JUICE. psy 
In comparing these numbers, it will be seen that cane sugar, which 
can be considered as the prototype, may be represented chemically by 
an atom of carbon and an atom of water ; and that the proportion of 
water increases as the sugar becomes less capable of compact crystal- 
lization. Accordingly, the sugar of grapes, of starch, of honey, &c., 
has less carbon and more water than cane sugar. The results of the 
different analyses are also the more discordant as the sugar is less 
regularly crystallizable and associated with a greater number of 
foreign substances, as in the sugar of manna and the sugar of milk. 
And the analysis which exhibits the greatest proportion of hydrogen 
is precisely that of the sweet matter, (glycerin,) which is procured 
from the most highly hydrogenated of all these substances, namely, 
oil and fatty matters. 
Although the principles of sugar making are simple, the practice, 
as before stated, is beset with difficulties and attended with loss and 
injury of material, arising from the extreme susceptibility to change 
of the cane juice itself. The latter, as it runs from the crushing mill, 
is nearly colorless ; but a very brief exposure to the atmosphere, in 
warm weather, hastens decomposition, which, unless checked, rapidly 
advances, and in a short time converts this sweet-tasted, bland liquid 
into a spiritous or acescent product, turbid from insoluble suspended 
matter, and wholly unfit for the purpose to which it was intended to 
be applied. To guard against this evil, the operator always endeavors 
to conduct the first part of the process, at least, as expeditiously as 
possible. But instead of heating the freshly expressed juice of the 
sorgho, in order to insure its crystallization, in a large vessel to blood- 
heat, or upward, and adding a little slaked lime, as is usually the 
case, to neutralize the free acids, which are always present in the juice 
of the sugar cane, the lime should be applied while the liquid is cold, 
conformably to the method discovered by Leonard Wray, of London, 
and recently patented by him in Europe and elsewhere. The lime is 
employed for the purpose of saturating these acids, which should be 
done as quickly as possible, in order to restore the gluten contained in 
the liquid to its original insolubility, so that it may immediately coag- 
ulate, and, in this manner, envelope in its volume all those substances 
consisting of green and gummy matters. Let it be borne in mind, in 
