388 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



taking one state of circumstances with another in 

 these respects, every five gallons, imperial measure, 

 of cane-juice, will yield six pounds of crystallized 

 sugar, and will be obtained from about one hundred 

 and ten well-grown canes. 



The fuel used for thus concentrating the juice is 

 furnished by the cane itself, which, after the express- 

 ing of that juice, is dried for the purpose by exposure 

 to the sun. 



When the sugar is sufficiently cooled in shallow 

 trays, it is put into the hogsheads wherein it is ship- 

 ped to Europe. These casks have their bottoms 

 pierced with holes, and are placed upright over a 

 large cistern into which the molasses which is the 

 portion of saccharine matter that will not crystallize 

 drains away, leaving the raw sugar in the state 

 wherein we see it in our grocers' shops : the casks 

 are then filled up, headed down, and shipped. 



With the planters in our own colonies, the process 

 of sugar-making mostly ends with the draining away 

 of the molasses in the manner just mentioned ; but in 

 the French, Spanish, and Portugueze settlements it 

 is usual to submit this raw sugar to the farther pro- 

 cess of claying. For this purpose the sugar, as soon 

 as it is cool, is placed in forms or moulds, similar to 

 those used in the sugar refineries in England, but 

 much larger ; and these being placed with their small 

 ends downwards, the top of the sugar is covered with 

 clay moistened to the consistence of thin paste, the 

 water contained in which gradually soaks through 

 the sugar and washes out a farther quantity of mo- 

 lasses, with which it escapes through a hole pur- 

 posely made at the point of the earthen mould. It 

 is then called clayed-sugar: the loaves when removed 

 from the forms are frequently divided into three por- 

 tions, which, being of different colours and qualities, 

 arising from the greater effect of the water in cleans- 



