SUGAR. VEGETABLE OILS. WAX. 69 



and is sometimes used as food. By the botanists, one 

 form of it is called dextrine. 



246. Loaf sugar is Sugar in a crystalline state. Atten 

 tively examined, it is found to be made up of little bright 

 crystals, which reflect the light and give the brilliant white 

 appearance of loaf sugar. Dissolved in water and allowed 

 to evaporate and harden, it becomes sugar candy. Brown 

 or Muscovado sugar is unrefined, and contains other sub 

 stances which give it its peculiar taste . Sugar is nutrition s , 

 and is used, all over the world, as a sweetener. It is found 

 in every plant; but in the greatest abundance in sugar cane, 

 Indian corn-stalks, sorgho, beet root and carrot, and in 

 sweet fruits, as the pear, and apple, and the melon. 



247 . Vegetable Oils. The peculiarity of these substances 

 is their leaving upon paper or- linen a translucent spot, 

 and their refusal to mix with water. There is perhaps 

 no plant and no part of a plant which does not contain 

 oil. From some plants, as from a species of palm in 

 Africa, it is extracted in vast quantities. From many 

 seeds it may be pressed, as particularly from the seeds of 

 flax, when it is called linseed oil, and from those of the 

 turnip, the poppy and the sunflower. A plant called 

 colza, which botanists suppose to be the cabbage in its 

 natural condition, is extensively cultivated in France for 

 the purpose of yielding oil. 



248. Wax is a kind of solid oil which often appears on 

 the surface of the stem, leaves or fruits of plants, and in 

 a very remarkable manner upon the fruit of the candle- 

 berry myrtle. In those parts of plants which have a hoary 

 appearance, as is the case with many kinds of plum, the 

 delicate bluish bloom consists of a thin layer of very 

 small wax granules. Bees-wax is collected, perhaps 

 formed, by bees. Some chemists think it is formed from 

 sugar. 



