ers of certain facts regarding sugar. There 

 is a large class of substances included in 

 tlie general term, sugar. Only two are of 

 sufficient commercial importance to demand 

 our attention at present. One is termed by 

 the chemist, s\icrosc, and includes cane 

 sugar, beet sugar, ami maple sugar. These 

 sugars are chemically identical, and pos- 

 sess the same amount of sweetening power. 

 Sucrose exists in the sap of a great variety 

 of plants, and has never been manufactured 

 from any other material. 



The second class is called glucose or 

 grape sugar; the white lumps of sugar in 

 raisans is glucose. This kind of sugar may 

 be manufactured from other materials, e. g.: 

 from starch, woody fibre, etc. While it is 

 possible to make this kind of sugar out of 

 old cotton and linen rags, paper, sawdust, 

 «&c., yet it is not profitable to do so, because 

 of the time required to make the change 

 and the dfiiculty in purifying and decolor- 

 izing tlie sugar when it is made. But this 

 sugar can be very rapidly and economically 

 made out of starch, and the manufacture 

 has been carried on in France for a long 

 time, and seems to have been intrduced into 

 this country. 



The chemical composition of cane sugar 

 differs from that of starch only by one mol- 

 ecule of water, while grape sugar differs 

 from starch by two molecules of water. If 

 we could chemically combine one molecule 

 of water with one of starch, we could make 

 cane sugar. Chemists have attempted this 

 by boiling starch with dilute sulphuric acid, 

 biit they always overdo the matter, adding 

 two molecules of water, thereby getting 

 grape sugar instead of cane sugar. If 

 chemistry shall ever enable us to readily 

 and cheaply combine the one molecule of 

 water with starch, then the millennium of 

 the sugar lovers will have come, for a 

 bushel of corn will then make about 2.5 lbs. 

 of cane sugar. 



But chemists have not yet solved this 

 problem which taxes their ingenuity only 

 to tantalize their endeavor. 



But while chemists have been baffled in 

 their attempts to convert starch into cane 

 sugar, they have found it very easy to con- 

 vert starch into grape sugar. I will briefly 

 describe the process as given by Payen, 

 because we shall then more fully compre- 

 hend the results I'eached in the examination 

 of certain syrups. 



The saccharification of the starch in 

 France is carried on in large wooden vats, 

 capable of holding 2,800 gallons. The con- 

 tents of the vat may be heated by forcing 

 in steam through a coiled steam pipe at the 

 bottom. The steam pipe is perforated, to 

 permit the steam to escape at many points 

 into the contents of the vat. In France the 

 steam pipe is made of lead; in this country 

 I suspect they use iron pipes. When 2 tons 

 of starch are to be converted into sugar, 32 

 bbls. of water and about 80 lbs. of sulplnnic 

 acid are placed in the vat, and the whole 

 heated to 212^ by forcing in steam. Two 

 hundred lbs. of starch are then mixed with 

 22 gallons of water and stirred up, and 4 or 

 5 gallons of this mixture are run into the 

 vat. The temperature is kept up to the 

 boiling point all the while, and successive 



charges of starch are run in till the 

 whole amount is converted into sugar. — 

 The steam is then shut off, and chalk 

 is added in a sufficient quantity to 

 neutralize the sulphuric acid, but if too 

 little chalk is used, free sulphuric acid will 

 be left in the contents of the vat. The 

 sparingly soluble sulphate of lime is form- 

 ed, and much of it settles to the bottom of 

 the liquid; the clear liquid is drawn off" and 

 evaporated by steam heat till the proper 

 destiny of syiup is secured, or until it will 

 crystalize on cooling and standing for sev- 

 eral days, according as they seek to make 

 syrup or sugar. 



This brief description will assist us to 

 understand why certain impurities are 

 found in these starch-sugar syrups. If iron 

 l)ipes are used to convey the steam for heat- 

 ing the contents of the vat, the sulphuric 

 acic will attack and dissolve some of the 

 iron, and thus sulphate of iron (copperas) 

 will appear in the syrup. If too little chalk 

 is used, free suli)huric acid will remain in 

 the syrnp. The chalk being carbonate of 

 lime, its use will explain why lime may be 

 found in large quantities in the syrup. As 

 clialk is insoluble in water, and sulphate of 

 lime is very sparingly soluble, many per- 

 sons would suppose that little or no lime 

 would remain in these syrups. But we 

 must bear in mind that sugar itself acts the 

 part of an acid with many substances. — 

 Thus there are two well known salts form- 

 ed by combination of lime and sugar; one 

 containing one equivalent of lime to one of 

 sugar, the other containing 3 equivalents of 

 lime to one of sugar. 



These sucrates of lime have lost, entirely, 

 the sweet taste characteristic of sugar, and 

 have a bitterish taste instead. Last spring 

 some students at this College brought me a 

 small quantity of a whitish, granular mass, 

 which deposited from the maple syrup in 

 "settling" to make maple sugar. The 

 sugar boilers called it sand, as it is hard 

 and gritty, insoluble in water, and destitute 

 of any sweet taste. On analysis I found 

 the material to be nearly pure sucrate of 

 lime, containing in addition a small amount 

 of phosphate of magnesia. Here was the 

 natural formation of the sucrate of lime 

 from the elements of plant food contained 

 in the sap. 



Not only will sugar thus combine with 

 lime, oxide of lead, oxide of iron, &c., but 

 it will associate with itself sulphuric acid, 

 and form a compound acid which compoi'ts 

 itself very differently from simple sulphu- 

 ric acid. This sucro-sulphuric acid forms a 

 pretty large class of salts which are soluble 

 in water, but especially soluble in solutions 

 of sugar. Reagents which will readily pre- 

 cipitate sulphuric acid and sulphates, e. g. 

 chloride of barium, will not precipitate tlie 

 sucro-sulphates. 



Glucose has the same power as an acid 

 substance as sucrose, forming a class of 

 soluble glucosates. It will also associate 

 with itself sulphuric acid, and form a class 

 of gluco-sulphates. Undoubtedly, a large 

 part of the lime found in these starch-sugar 

 syrups exists in the form of gluco-sulphate 

 of lime. The sparing solubility of sulphate 

 of lime in water is no guarantee that 

 these syrups will not contain a large 



