942 SUGAR 



the bottom of the chimney ; so that between the surface of the grate and the bottom 

 of the teache there is a distance of 28 inches ; while between the bottom of the flue 

 and that of tho grand, No. 5, at the other end of the range, there are barely 18 

 inches. 



In some sugar-houses there is planted, in the angular space between each boiler, a 

 basin, one foot wide and a few inches deep, for the purpose of receiving the scum 

 which thence flows off into the grand copper, along a gutter scooped out on the margin 

 of the brickwork. The skimmings of the grand are thrown into a separate pan, placed 

 at its side. A large cylindrical cooler, about 6 feet wide and 2 feet deep, has been 

 placed in certain sugar-works near the teache, for receiving successive charges of its 

 inspissated syrup. Each finished charge is called a skipping, because it is skipped 

 or laded out. The term striking is also applied to the act of emptying tho teache. 

 When upon one skipping of syrup in a state of incipient granulation in the cooler, a 

 second skipping is poured, this second congeries of saccharine particles agglomerates 

 round the first as nuclei of crystallisation, and produces a larger grain ; a result im- 

 proved by each successive skipping. This principle has been long known to the 

 chemist, but does not seem to have been always properly considered or appreciated 

 by the sugar-planter. 



From the above-described cooler, the syrup is transferred into wooden chests or 

 boxes, open at top, and of a rectangular shape, also called coolers, but which are more 

 properly crystallisers or granulators. These are commonly six in number ; each being 

 about 1 foot deep, 7 feet long, and 5 or 6 feet wide. When filled, such a mass is 

 collected as to favour slow cooling, and consequently large-grained crystallisation. If 

 these boxes be too shallow, the grain is exceedingly injured, as may be easily shown 

 by pouring some of the same syrup on a small tray ; when, on cooling, the sugar will 

 appear like a muddy soft sand. 



The due concentration of the syrup in the teache is known by the boiler, by the 

 appearance of a drop of the syrup pressed and then drawn into a thread between the 

 thumb and fore-finger. The thread eventually breaks at a certain limit of extension, 

 shrinking from the thumb to the suspended finger, in lengths somewhat proportional 

 to the inspissation of the syrup. But the appearance of granulation in the thread 

 must also be considered ; for a viscid and damaged syrup may give a long enough 

 thread, and yet yield almost no crystalline grains when cooled. Tenacity and granular 

 aspect must therefore be both taken into the account, and will continue to constitute 

 the practical guides to the negro boiler, till a less barbarous mode of concentrating 

 cane-juice be substituted for the present naked teache, or sugar frying-pan. 



A viscous syrup containing much gluten and sugar, altered by lime, requires a 

 higher temperature to enable it to granulate than a pure saccharine syrup; and 

 therefore the thermometer, though a useful aid, can by no means be regarded as a 

 sure guide, in determining the proper instant for striking the teache. 



The colonial curing-house is a spacious building, of which the earthen floor is ex- 

 cavated to form the molasses-reservoir. This is lined with sheet-lead, boards, tan-as, 

 or other retentive cement; its bottom slopes a little, and it is partially covered by an 

 open massive frame of joist- work, on which the plotting casks are set upright. These 

 are merely empty sugar-hogsheads, without headings, having 8 or 10 holes bored in 

 their bottoms, through each of which the stalk of a plantain-leaf is stuck, so as to 

 protrude downwards 6 or 8 inches below the level of the joists, and to rise above the 

 top of the cask. Tho act of transferring the crude concrete sugar from the crystal- 

 lisers into these hogsheads, is called potting. The bottom holes, and the spongy 

 stalks stuck in them, allow the molasses to drain slowly downwards into the sunk 

 cistern. In the common mode of procedure, sugar of average quality is kept from 3 

 to 4 weeks in the curing-house ; that which is soft-grained and glutinous must remain 

 5 or 6 weeks. The curing-house should bo close and warm, to favour the liquefac- 

 tion and drainage of the viscid molasses. 



Out of 120,000,000 Ibs. of raw sugar which used to bo annually shipped by the 

 St. Domingo planters, only 96,000,000 Ibs. were landed in France, according to the 

 authority of Dutrone, constituting a loss by drainage in the ships of 50 percent. The 

 average transport waste in the sugars of the British colonies cannot be estimated at 

 less than 12 per cent, or altogether upwards of 27,000 tons ! What a tremendous 

 sacrifice of property ! 



Syrup intended for forming clayed sugar must be somewhat more concentrated in 

 tho teache, and run off into a copper cooler, capable of receiving three or four suc- 

 cessive skippings. Here it is stirred to ensure uniformity of product, and is then 

 transferred by ladles into conical moulds, made of coarse pottery or of sheet iron, 

 having a small orifice at the apex, which is stopped with a plug of wood wrapped in 

 a leaf of maize. These conical pots stand with the base upwards. As their capacity, 

 when largest, is considerably less than that of the smallest potting-casks, and as the 



