810 



SUGAR. 



public-spirited citiiens raised up establishments, 

 more perhaps to give the benefit of experiments to 

 their countrymen, than with a view to profitable 

 investment. Men of genius and profound research 

 occupied themselves with elaborate experiments, 

 and published their results. Among the most im- 

 portant were the Count Cbaptal, who detailed, in 

 .Memoirs on the subject, and in his " Agricultural 

 Chemistry," the experience of many years as a cul- 

 tivator of beets and manufacturer of sugar; and 

 M. Dombasle, who did the same, with admirable 

 clearness and precision, in his work entitled " Facts 

 and Observations relating to the Manufacture of 

 Beet Sugar." As an intelligent and industrious 

 operative, M. Crespel Delisse, of Arras, is worthy 

 of honourable mention. This gentleman was ori- 

 ginally a labourer. He became the foreman of the 

 first beet-sugar manufactory at Arras. The pro- 

 prietor, who had invested an immense capital, sank 

 in the general wreck of 1814 15. M. Crespel suc- 

 ceeded him, with the great advantage of having his 

 fixtures at about one fourth of their real value. Thjs 

 was one of the two establishments which survived. 



The method in general use in France is to crush 

 or grind the beet with an instrument called a rasp, 

 though its functions would be better described by 

 the word grater. It is cylindrical, and revolves 

 four hundred or more times in a minute. This 

 reduces the beets to a very fine pulp. They are 

 then pressed in hydraulic presses of great power, 

 and the juice defecated, evaporated, boiled, and 

 filtered, in very much the same manner as the 

 cane-juice in the colonies. The great difference 

 is, that the beet- sugar machinery has been rapidly 

 improved, and the cane planters have begun to 

 avail themselves of the improvements. There is, 

 however, another method of extracting the sac- 

 charine, which dispenses altogether with grating 

 and pressing. This is called maceration. It was 

 first proposed by Dombasle, and has been tried in 

 various forms, with more or less success. M. 

 Martin'de Roclincourt, originally a captain of en- 

 gineers, is the inventor of an ingenious and valu- 

 able machine for performing this operation. The 

 beet is first cut into ribands, about one line in thick- 

 ness. They are then plunged in boiling water, 

 which is admitted into the machine at regular in- 

 tervals, in regular doses. The ribands remain 

 passing through the circuit of the machine during 

 one hour, and steam is occasionally admitted to 

 keep up the heat. In this time, the sugar con- 

 tained in the ribands is dissolved, and remains in 

 solution in the water, while the ribands, now 

 called pulp, are discharged on the side of the 

 machine opposite to that where they entered it ; 

 the liquor containing the saccharine flows off in 

 another direction to the defecating pans. 



This method is employed to a considerable 

 extent in France, but by no means so generally as 

 the rasp and press. Its advantages are, that it gives 

 rather more and a rather better product, and requires 

 a great deal less labour. Its disadvantages are, that 

 it takes a great deal more fuel, and does not leave 

 the pulp in so good a taste for feeding; there being 

 too much water in it, and less saccharine, than in 

 that which comes from the press. It might be sub- 

 jected to pressure, by which a little additional liquor 

 would be obtained for the pans, and the pulp 

 made vastly better for feeding. This, however, 

 would require so much power of the press, and so 

 much parns, that the French generally feed with 

 the pulp just as it falls from the machine. We 



have little hesitation in giving the preference to 

 this method in a country where fuel is cheap and 

 labour dear. The immense establishment com- 

 menced in London in 1837, but abandoned in con- 

 sequence of the excise of 2d a pound, which the 

 government hastened to impose in order to guard 

 the West India interest, was upon this system. 

 On the other hand, the only other beet-sugar 

 manufactory, upon a scale of any importance, in 

 Great Britain and Ireland, which is situated near 

 Dublin, has adopted the rasp and press. The for- 

 mer establishment delivered for consumption a 

 considerable quantity of beautiful refined sugar, 

 which was so completely undistinguishable from 

 refined cane sugar, that the government issued an 

 extraordinary notice, that any fraud in the expor- 

 tation of it with the benefit of drawback would, if 

 detected, be punished with the utmost severity. 

 Whether the establishment in Ireland still exists, 

 we are not informed. It is, however, the opinion 

 of persons skilled in the manufacture and refining 

 of sugar, and who have had small experimental 

 beet-sugar factories near London, that the busi- 

 ness cannot be sustained under a duty of 2d. 

 Others are confident, that, in consequence of the 

 application of the fibre to paper-making, by which 

 the value of the pulp is enhanced fourfold, the 

 business will yet get a permanent footing in Great 

 Britain. We do not think a fair experiment has 

 yet been made in this country. 



The great desideratum which the French manu- 

 facturers of beet-sugar have always felt, and have 

 been striving to supply, has been at length attained ; 

 a method has been discovered by which the beet 

 is deprived of all its saccharine, be the same more 

 or less, and this matter is obtained and operated 

 upon in such a manner as to be nearly all in a 

 crystallizable state. Hitherto, about 50 per cent, 

 of the saccharine has resulted in molasses. This 

 residuum is of comparatively small value ; and every 

 thing which arrests the formation of it, adds by so 

 much to the deposit of sugar, and to the profits of 

 the proprietor. 



M. Schuzenbach, a chemist of Carlsruhe, in the 

 grand duchy of Baden, is the author of this im- 

 portant improvement. Having obtained his result 

 in the laboratory, he communicated it to distin- 

 guished capitalists in Baden, who thereupon formed 

 a company ; not with a view, in the first instance, 

 of erecting a manufactory upon the new system, 

 but merely of proving its pretensions. To this 

 end, they advanced a considerable sum for setting 

 up experimental works so large, that the thing 

 could be tried on a manufacturing scale. Having 

 done this at Ettingen, near Carlsruhe, they ap- 

 pointed a scientific and practical commission to 

 follow closely the experiments which M. Schuz- 

 enbach should make. Commissioners from the 

 governments of Wurtemberg and Bavaria likewise 

 attended. The experiments were carried on dur- 

 ing five or six weeks, in which time several thou- 

 sand pounds of sugar, of superior grain and purity, 

 were produced. 



The Baden company were so well satisfied with 

 the Report of the commission, that they imme- 

 diately determined to erect an immense establish- 

 ment, at an expense of 45,000 for fixtures only. 

 A like sum was devoted to the current expenses 

 of the works. Factories were simultaneously 

 erected at or near Munich, Stuttgard, and Berlin. 

 The arrangements were made with remarkable in- 

 telligence and caution ; and we cannot doubt, that 



