276 Chemistry. [Lecture 34. 



ever, as the sugar-cane and the sugar-maple of 

 America, contain it in much larger quantities 

 than others, so as to render the culture of these 

 plants, and the preparation of the article from 

 them, a matter of great commercial importance. 

 Sugar is decomposed both by heat and mixture ; 

 and by the most accurate experiments it is found 

 to be composed entirely of oxygen, carbon, and 

 hydrogen. It is therefore a vegetable oxide. 

 The proportions of these matters were found by 

 Lavoisier to be 



64 parts oxygen. 



28 carbon. 

 8 hydrogen. 



100 



These proportions must, however, vary con- 

 siderably in the sugars produced from different 

 plants, and they must frequently have united 

 with them some heterogeneous matters. The 

 beet, the carrot, the parsnip, the sap of many 

 trees, and all the different kinds of grain, con- 

 tain sugar in considerable abundance. Accord- 

 ing to the calculations of M. Achard of Berlin, 

 twenty pounds of beet root will yield one of 

 sugar, and a German square mile of land (six- 

 toen square miles English) would produce white 

 beet enough to furnish the Prussian dominions 

 with sugar. 



The saccharine matter is so profusely diffused 

 in the vegetable kingdom, that we see the bees 



