70 SUGAR 



of the beetroot sugar districts of Europe ; but seldom in 

 the United States, where " granulated " is almost uni- 

 versal. This kind of refining sugar is called " cen- 

 trifugal" to distinguish it from the lower classes called 

 muscovado. The " mother liquor " from the first crys- 

 tallization is either boiled into a second product or taken 

 back into the pan to mix again with the boiled mass. 

 The vacuum pan, which used to be quite a small, 

 nearly spherical vessel, is now made of an enormous 

 size for the use of factories where large quantities of 

 juice have to be dealt with. These large pans, instead 

 of having only one steam worm, are armed with a series 

 of them, the steam being first turned on in the lowest, 

 and then into each in succession as the pan gets fuller. 

 The process of boiling and crystallizing sugar in the 

 vacuum pan is quite a fine art. It must suffice to de- 

 scribe it very roughly in this popular treatise. Moreover, 

 there are infinite varieties of treatment, dependent 

 upon the purity or impurity of the material operated 

 upon, and the kind of sugar the operator desires to 

 produce. For instance, the loaf sugar which we see 

 in a Paris restaurant, a dull white lump of sugar without 

 any sparkling grain, is not crystallized at all in the pan. 

 The liquor is boiled down to such a thickness that it 

 will crystallize of itself while cooling. It is run into 

 the loaf-moulds where it rapidly crystallizes as it cools. 

 It forms a dull granulated mass. On the other hand, 

 the sparkling loaf or cube sugar used in this country 

 is made by most careful and skilful crystallization in 

 the pan. The liquor, as it covers only the lowest of 

 the steam coils, is brought to the crystallizing point, 

 and then comes the skill. Not only can the boiling 

 liquor be looked at through a window in the pan, but 

 samples can be taken from the hermetically sealed 

 pan, with what is called a proof-stick. The pan-man 



