84 SUGAR 



he handed his house over to the Frenchmen, substituted 

 French for English machinery, and at once made his 

 fortune. He got a great increase in the percentage 

 of white sugar and reduced the use of charcoal to such 

 an extent that his loss of weight an important item 

 in the cost of refining -was reduced to a minimum. 



Since then other methods for defecating the raw 

 sugar before filtration have been introduced, lime and 

 phosphoric acid, for instance, creating a precipitate 

 which carries down with it the gummy and albuminous 

 impurities of the sugar. 



But we were learning other useful lessons from our 

 continental neighbours. They not only purified their 

 raw liquor before filtering but also purified their raw 

 sugar before melting. The raw sugar was mixed in a 

 stirring machine with syrup, and then went to a regiment 

 of centrifugal machines above the melting floor, where 

 the crystals of the raw sugar were separated from the 

 syrup and impurities which surrounded them. Here 

 again was a system which resulted in the production 

 of a larger percentage of white sugar. In this country 

 the resulting syrup from this preliminary washing 

 would be filtered over charcoal, and boiled into fine 

 yellow sugars. In the continental refineries it was 

 boiled into a good raw sugar which, in its turn, was 

 dried in centrifugal machines and went to the melting 

 pan. 



This is only a rough picture of the different methods 

 in different countries, but it is sufficient to indicate in 

 outline the varying ways of refining sugar, and how 

 the demands of the consumer are supplied, whether 

 those demands come from our millions, who consume 

 annually 95 Ibs. per head, or from those countries who 

 do not consume half that quantity. 



In the present day white sugar has become so cheap 



