412 CHEMICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 



confectionery, but merely the substance sugar itself as we are 

 accustomed to see it in loaf, crystal, or powder on our tables, or 

 in the kitchen. 



The countries from which the United Kingdom receives the 

 largest supplies of refined sugar are Germany, Netherlands, 

 Belgium, and Austria-Hungary. From this it may be inferred 

 that the countries in which sugar is manufactured from the cane 

 do not occupy themselves much with the process of refining 

 and producing loaves and lump. This goes on in Europe, and 

 the refined white sugar which appears on the table is very com- 

 monly a mixture of sugar from the cane and the beet, from 

 which latter plant the whole of European-grown sugar is derived. 

 This fact should be a corrective of the still surviving prejudice 

 against beet sugar with which some housekeepers are haunted. 

 Forty or more years ago there was substantial foundation for 

 the prevalent objection to beet sugar which in those days re- 

 tained, in the shops, a peculiar evil smell and an appreciable 

 quantity of potassium chloride, by which its sweetening power 

 was sensibly diminished. With the removal of these impurities 

 by the processes of refining, sugar from whatever source it is 

 derived has, like every other definite chemical compound, 

 specific properties of its own by which it is always distinguished 

 from every other chemical compound. Hence until it has been 

 shown that sugar derived from beet differs from sugar obtained 

 from the cane in crystalline form, in its action on polarised light, 

 in solubility in water and in sweetening power as determined by 

 an exact quantitative comparison, in which correctly weighed 

 quantities are compared together, there is no justification for 

 the suspicion that they are not identical. 



Imports of sugar into the United Kingdom : 



1913. 



Cwt. Value. 



Refined 



Total 18,450,897 12,351,086 



Foreign and Colonial. 

 Unrefined. 



Beet 13,542,112 6,781,240 



Chiefly from Germany. 



Cane, etc. 7,392,181 3,934,295 



Chiefly from Cuba and West Indian Islands. 



