SAC 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



SAC 



505 



Cane was found on the continent, and in some of the islands ; 

 hut the art of making sugar, it is said, never was practised 

 by the native inhabitants of the islands, or of South America. 

 Of this there may be some doubt, as far as the account relates 

 to Mexico : and it is certain that before the discovery of the 

 West Indies in 1492, before the discovery of the East Indies 

 by the Portuguese in 1497, and before the discovery of the 

 Brazils by the same nation in 1500, abundance of sugar was 

 made in the islands of Sicily, Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus. 

 The Sugar Cane is supposed to have been originally brought 

 to these islands from India by the Saracens, and to have been 

 from thence transplanted into some parts of Italy ; while the 

 Moors imported it from Africa into Spain, where it was first 

 planted in Valencia, and afterwards in Granada and Murcia, 

 in which provinces great quantities were formerly produced ; 

 and some is still cultivated in the two latter. From Valencia 

 the cultivation and manufacture of sugar were carried by the 

 Spaniards to the Canary Islands, in the 15th century ; but 

 prior to this period, the Portuguese, in 1420, carried the Cane 

 and the manufacture from Sicily to Madeira. From Madeira, 

 the culture of the Sugar Cane, and the art of making sugar 

 were extended to the West India Islands and the Brazils; 

 for it seems certain that the Sugar Cane itself was found 

 growing in various parts of the American continent, and in 

 some of the West India Islands, when they were first disco- 

 vered ; and that in Mexico and Peru the culture of the plant, 

 and the art of manufacturing it into sugar, were well known. 

 The Portuguese are said *o have made sugar in the island of 

 St. Thomas under the line, on the coast of Africa, much 

 earlier than it was manufactured in the West Indies. The 

 island of St. Thomas was discovered in 1405, and they had 

 sixty-one sugar works on it before the Dutch destroyed them 

 in the year 1610. In the Brazils, sugar was first made in the 

 year 1580 ; and by the English at Barbadoes in the year 1643, 

 and even then, they only manufactured muscovadoes, which 

 were so moist and full of molasses, and so ill cured, as to 

 be hardly worth sending to England, but they greatly im- 

 proved it in the seven following years. Though the West 

 Indies now chiefly supplies Europe with sugar, that plant 

 was first brought to it from Arabia and the East Indies, or 

 rather from the latter through the former. Dioscorides, 

 Pliny, Galen, and Paulus Elgineta, all describe it as white 

 like salt, brittle between the teeth, and sweet like honey. 

 This description has been commonly supposed to belong to 

 the Tabaxir noticed under Arundo Bamboo ; but that was not 

 sweet, and there is little doubt that the substance intended 

 was crystallized sugar. Mosely observes, that there has 

 always been two sorts of sugar made in the East, the raw 

 or muscovado sugar, and sugar-eandy : the first being ap- 

 propriated for culinary purposes only, and the second for 

 every other purpose of diet, luxury, and exportation. The 

 former is, and we have reason to suppose ever has been, 

 made in Bengal, and other districts of the East Indies : but 

 China and Cochin-china seem to be the only countries in the 

 East where the bright transparent sugar-candy is made in 

 perfection. It is exported from China to every part of India, 

 even where abundance of sinrar is made, and Du Halde 

 adds, it constitutes a great trade to Japan. Father Loureiro 

 forms us, that sugar is cultivated to a much greater extent 

 i Cochin-china than in China, and that crystallized sugar 

 is exported from that country in great quantities. He thus 

 describes the method of making it: The raw sugar being 

 purified by putting it into conical earthen vessels with a thin 

 stratum of moist clay on the top, and discharging the impu- 

 rities through a small hole in the bottom ; this whitened, or 

 we call it, clayed sugar, is dissolved in water over a fire, 





and 



bd|h to the consistence of a thick syrup ; it is then 

 jd in a 



a cool place during the night, with some slender 

 rods cut from the Indian Reed spread over it; the syrup, as 

 it is condensed by the nocturnal cold, adheres to these rods, 

 and is formed into beautiful crystals. None of the eastern 

 nations much esteem any other sugar than this, which pro- 

 bably has its name from two Indian words Shukur and 

 Khand, both which words signify sugar in general, though 

 we have united them in the name Sugarcandy, and applied 

 to sugar prepared in a particular way. The Asiatics use 

 this kind of sugar in tea, coffee, and all other beverages ; 

 and the general preference given to this kind of sugar, may 

 account for the art of refining it into loaves having been 

 little practised in the East; that art was only discovered at 

 the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, and was first practised in England in the year 1544. 

 The sugar in common use is prepared from the expressed 

 juice of the Cane, boiled with quick-lime or common vege- 

 table alkali, to imbibe the superfluous acid. The boiling is 

 repeated in smaller and smaller vessels, during which it is 

 often necessary to scum the impurities, and employ addi- 

 tional alkali ; when the juice acquires a due consistence, it 

 is suffered to cool in a proper vessel, and the saccharine 

 matter concretes into a crystalline mass. This, after being 

 separated from the molasses, is sold under the name of brown 

 or moist sugar. It may be purified in conical moulds, by 

 spreading on the upper broad surface some moist clay, which 

 gradually transfuses its moisture through the mass of sugar, 

 and tarries with it a considerable part of the remaining 

 treacly matter : it is then called clayed sugar. Loaf sugar is 

 prepared in this country from the other sugar boiled in water, 

 lime-water, and bullock's blood or eggs, commonly both being 

 added to it, in order to clarify it, by incorporating with the oily 

 and mucilaginous parts, and forming a scum, which is care- 

 fully taken off; then, after sufficient clarification, it is strained 

 through a woollen cloth, and boiled again until it becomes 

 of a proper consistence ; it is then poured into a refrigeratory, 

 and when duly cooled, into conical clay moulds, perforated 

 at the apex, which is placed downwards; at first this aper- 

 ture is stopped up, but as the sugar concretes it is opened, 

 in order that the syrup or molasses may drain off. By this 

 draining the cone of sugar shrinks at the base below the 

 edges of the mould, which, to render the loaf still whiter, is 

 filled up with moist clay, closely applied to the base of the 

 sugar cone: lastly, the cone is placed upon its base, taken 

 out of the mould, wrapped in paper, and dried or baked in 

 a close oven. Two centuries have scarcely elapsed since it 

 can be properly said that sugar has become an ingredient in 

 the popular diet of Europe. There are now very few per- 

 sons who do not mix mare or less of it in their daily food ; 

 excepting the remote and poor population of the interior and 

 northern parts. It is very difficult to ascertain when it was first 

 brought into England, but it was in use here in 1466, though 

 only at feasts, and in medicine. The quantity consumed has 

 always continued to increase, until it has become the staple 

 article of our colonial commerce. Sugar is manifestly a 

 neutral saline substance, consisting of a peculiar acid, united 

 to a small quantity of alkali, and much oily matter. It crys- 

 tallizes in hexedral truncate prisms; and affords by distil- 

 lation an acid phlegm, with a few drops of empyreumatic 

 oil ; the residue is a spongy light coal, which contains a small 

 quantity of vegetable alkali. Dissolved in water, it undergoes 

 fermentation, and acquires first a vinous, then an acetous 

 flavour. The vinous liqnor distilled, yields a strong ardent 

 s|iirir, well known under the name of Rum. Bergman sepa- 

 rated the acid of sugar, and exhibited it in a crvstalline form. 



