240 APPENDIX. 
CHEMICAL RESEARCHES ON THE SORGHO SUCRE. 
BY ©. T. JACKSON, M.D., OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 
On the 29th of October, 1856, I received from the Patent Office a 
bottle of expressed juice of the Sorghum saccharatum, procured from 
plants raised upon the government grounds in Washington. This 
juice, after being strained through fine linen, had a specific gravity of 
1-062 ; and, after boiling and the separation of an albuminous scum, 
1-055. Three and a half fluid ounces of the strained juice, evaporated 
at 212° F., until it became a dense straw-yellow syrup, too thick to 
run, when cold gave 217 grains of saccharine matter. That portion 
of the juice which had been freed from albuminous matter and filtered 
through paper, gave, on evaporation of a fluid ounce, 78 grains of 
thick yellow syrup, which, being dissolved in absolute alcohol, left 9 
per cent. of mucilaginous substances containing starch. ‘The alcohol 
took up 69 grains of saccharine matter. This is equal to 14°36 per 
cent. on the juice. 
Other portions of the juice were operated upon by lime water and 
bone black, and filtered and evaporated to syrup. A small proportion 
of crystallized sugar was obtained from the bottom of the vessel, in 
which the syrup had stood for some days. A part of the juice, 
diluted with warm water, with the addition of a little yeast, fermented 
and produced spirit, which, on being separated by distillation, was 
found to be an agreeably flavored alcohol, having, as M. Vilmorin has 
stated, a slight noyau taste. Good judges declared that it would 
make excellent brandy spirit. According to the experiments of Vil- 
morin, the amount of absolute alcohol obtained from the juice is a 
fraction over 6 per cent. 
On the 3d of November I also received from the Patent Office two 
parcels of the sorghum plant, in different stages of ripeness. That 
with quite ripe seeds was by far the sweetest; while the green one, 
which was just in flower, contained but very little saccharine matter. 
One thousand grains, taken from the middle of the ripe stalk, when 
peeled, gave 670 grains of pith, from which the juice was separated 
