SUGAR-CANE. SUGAR. 37 



land, where the climate is too cold to allow the 

 better kinds of corn to ripen ; and the seeds are 

 sometimes made into bread by the inhabitants of 

 those miserable countries. 



In the island of Rasay, one of the Scottish 

 Western Isles, the fishermen use ropes for their 

 nets made of the mountain Melic-grass, Mel'ica 

 nu'tans, which grows plentifully there, and is re- 

 markably tough. 



The Sugar-cane and Reed are also grasses. 

 The former, Sac'charum officina'rum, is supposed 

 to have been originally a native of Spain and Sicily, 

 and to have been carried by the Europeans into 

 America and the West Indies, where it is now 

 very extensively cultivated. It is from the juice of 

 its stem, which sometimes grows to the height of 

 twenty feet, that all our sugar is prepared. The 

 canes or stems of the plant, when ripe, are bruised 

 between the rollers of a mill, to squeeze out the 

 juice, which is collected and put into large boilers, 

 with a small quantity of quicklime, or strong ley 

 of vegetable ashes : when this has been boiled to 

 the consistence of a syrup, and carefully skimmed 

 it is drawn off and allowed to cool, in vessels per- 

 forated with small holes, through which the impure 

 liquid part, called molasses or treacle, escapes, and 

 is received in a cistern below ; while the re- 

 mainder becomes a mass of small and hard grains 

 of a brownish colour, called moist or raw sugar. 

 D 3 



