BEET, SUGAR, NEW PRODUCT FROM THE. 



75 



ed, and retained until 1852, when he was called 

 to the bench of the Supremo Court, when' he. 

 continued to preside as an Associate Justice 

 until the inauguration of the reconstructed 

 State government in 1808. In 1872-73 he 

 was appointed by the Legislature to revise the 

 statutes of the State; but this revision, the 

 work of his unassisted mind, never attained so 

 lii^'li u rank as the joint labors of others. He 

 subsequently removed to Chapel Hill after the 

 death of his wife, and resided with his son un- 

 til the close of his career. He was a man of 

 much natural excellence of character and ex- 

 tensive learning. 



BEET, SUGAR, NEW PRODUCT FROM 

 THE. The chemists have nowhere proved 

 the utility of their science in a more marked 

 and gratifying manner than in extracting so 

 many valuable commercial commodities from 

 the residual products of manufactured mate- 

 rials. The waste products of many an indus- 

 trial operation, which before the developments 

 of modern chemistry were useless and trouble- 

 some to get rid off, cumbering the ground or 

 distaining and poisoning the rivers, have been 

 made to yield the materials for one or more 

 secondary industries, turning out products of 

 valuable properties ; so that the residual prod- 

 ucts now utilized greatly exceed in number 

 those which are still found valueless. In the 

 science of organic chemistry the development 

 has been very recent, and is very imperfect 

 compared with the progress which has been 

 made in analyzing the non-organic mineral 

 constituents of the earth's matter. Every step 

 in this new science, whose threshold has 

 scarcely yet been passed, indicates that the 

 chemistry of life is vastly more complex than 

 the chemical combinations of the mineral 

 world; and nearly every new substance dis- 

 covered by resolving into their simpler ma- 

 terials, or by recombining organic principles 

 with each other or with non-organic elements, 

 ^ found to possess properties of utility, which 

 are sometimes exceedingly novel and remark- 

 able. An important gain to industrial art is 

 likely to result from a process discovered by 

 Camille Vincent of Paris for utilizing another 

 refuse material. In the manufacture of beet- 

 root sugar, the juice of the beet is expressed, 

 and, after filtering, is boiled and allowed to 

 crystallize. A thick molasses is left, which 

 has been used sometimes for sweetening pur- 

 poses and sometimes for fattening cattle, but 

 is now almost all subjected to fermentation 

 and distillation, yielding a coarse kind of rum. 

 After the alcohol is distilled out there is left in 

 the retort a liquid called vinaue, which was 

 formerly thrown away, until Dubrunfaut dis- 

 covered its value as a source of potash salts. 

 It is evaporated and the dry residuum calcined, 

 yielding an ash which is called talin, and is 

 rich in compounds of potassium. In this way 

 2,000 tons of carbonate of potash are produced 

 annually in the distilleries of France. By this 

 process the products of the beet were appar- 



ently all used up. But M. Vincent shows that 

 very valuable principles were allowed to es- 

 cape. Besides the alkaline matter, the liquor 

 remaining after the distillation of the spirit also 

 contains considerable quantities of organic mat- 

 ter, partly nitrogenous, which is decomposed 

 by the process of calcination, leaving a porous 

 carbonaceous mass containing also the remain- 

 ing mineral substances. The volatile products 

 of the decomposition may be saved by subject- 

 ing the concentrated vinasse to destructive dis- 

 tillation in an iron retort ; and, by passing them 

 through condensers, the condensable ones will 

 liquefy, while the permanent gases can be 

 conducted off and utilized as fuel. The por- 

 tions which admit of condensation consist in 

 bituminous and ammoniacal liquors, which dif- 

 fer in their chemical composition in some im- 

 portant respects from the similar products re- 

 maining after the manufacture of illuminating 

 gas from coal. One of the constituents of the 

 ammonia-water thus obtained is the foundation 

 of the new manufacturing process inaugurated 

 by M. Vincent. The liquid is found to contain 

 large quantities of the salts of trimethylamine. 

 Trimethylamine has never before been pro- 

 duced except in very small quantities in the 

 chemical laboratory. It is one of the organic 

 compounds called compound ammonias, the 

 first of which, methylamine, was discovered by 

 M. Wurtzin 1848, and the others, dimethylamine 

 and trimethylamine, by Dr. Hofmann, about 

 thirty years ago. In these the organic radical, 

 methyl, performs the part of hydrogen in the 

 gaseous compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, 

 and they were produced by replacing one, two, 

 or all three of the atoms of hydrogen in am- 

 monia by atoms of methyl. The trimethy- 

 lamine, the hydrochlorate of triraethylamine, 

 yields products of great utility. Upon decom- 

 posing the hydrochlorate by heat, it is resolved 

 into free ammonia, which is a valuable prod- 

 uct ; free trimethylamine, which can be used 

 over again for the same purpose ; and chloride 

 of methyl, a compound which has never before 

 been obtained in any quantities, and which 

 possesses some very remarkable properties. 

 The chloride is a combustible gaseous sub- 

 stance, which can be easily condensed into a 

 liquid form in strong wrought-iron cylinders, 

 and transported and handled with safety. One 

 use of chloride of methyl is in the manufacture 

 of the methylated colors, such as Hofmann's 

 violet and aniline green, in which it does the 

 service of the more expensive iodide. It pos- 

 sesses another quality which gives it a far 

 higher and a singular value. It is as a refrig- 

 erating agent that it promises to be of the 

 greatest service. By the rapid evaporation of 

 the liquid a reduction of temperature takes 

 place which exceeds that produced by any 

 other means. The liquid is not at all corro- 

 sive nor poisonous, and promises to supplant 

 all the other freezing agents. A machine 

 has been constructed by M. Vincent in which 

 a temperature of 55 C. can be produced and 



