IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. 83 



ter refining, is said to consist of refined sugar, 89 Ibs. bastard do 17 Ibs. 

 molasses ] 6 Ibs. of which 12 Ibs. are solid matter, and water 4 Ibs. 

 Sugar is called a neutral salt ; it gives a gloss to ink, varnishes and 

 pigments. When very cheap it has been used to fatten cattle. 



The composition of pure sugar (candy) is 42.85 carbon and 57.15 

 water; when less pure it contains less carbon and more water. Maple 

 and beet sugars contain 42-1 carbon and 57.9 water. The saccharine 

 principles are sugar, gum, vegetable jelly, starch and lignin, all of 

 which consist of carbon and oxygen and hydrogen, generally in the 

 ratio to form water. Of these 5 principles, sugar alone is crystalizabie 

 and therefore is most removed from organized life. These are the 

 common sugars of the cane, maple and beet and the granular sugars 

 of the grape, honey, starch and diabetic sugars and the sugar of milk ; 

 the uncrystalizable liquid or mucous sugars, are molasses, &c. In a 

 healthy stomach sugar is readily digested and is nutritious. It con- 

 tributes directly to the nutrition of plants and especially the young. 

 It is a constituent of milk, but birds, dogs and fowls die when fed alone 

 on it. The copious use of it is to be avoided. 



The character of sugar is distinguished, when pure, as a white granu- 

 lar solid, but crystalizabie in 4 or 6 sided prisms, terminated by 2 or 3 

 sided summits and the crystals are nearly anhydrous. The specific gra- 

 vity is 1.4 to 1.6. It is hardly soluble in alcohol, though proof spirits 

 dissolves it in considerable quantity. Sugar combines with the oxide 

 of lead forming saccharate of lead, and also other oxides. It has little 

 or no action on salts. With water it reduces muriate of gold and oth- 

 er metalic salts. From the average of experiments its composition is 

 50.50 oxygen, 42.50 carbon, and 6.80 hydrogen. 45 Ibs of sugar du- 

 ring fermentation are resolved into 23 alcohol and 22 carbonic acid. 

 Su i 4ar and water do not ferment alone. 



Sugar has been extracted from elm dust and several of the woods, 

 nrul uf late from woolen rags by means of sulphuric acid, with chalk. 

 A puund of rags are thus convertible into more than a pound of su- 

 SMI-. The process of manufacturing sugar from old rags is now con- 

 :-i jcrably carried on, it is said, in parts of Germany. 



Sugur in the United States is a subject of increasing interest. The 

 (U'iiiiuni is rapidly advancing. Its production in the state of Louisi- 

 ;;u;t, to which it is here principally confined, is a source of much wealth. 

 The capital employed in that state i> $52,000,000, with 40,000 hands 

 ttiid J 0,000 horses, and the average annual manufacture of sugar more 

 than 80,000,000 Ibs., and 4,000,000 gallons of molasses. The cane 

 crop in the U. S. last year (1842), was an average one, and the whole 

 a^iiregate sugar crop of the year was 142,445,199 Ibs., though near 

 13,000,000 less than in 1840. Our imports in 1840, were of brown 

 sugar, to the value of $4,742,492 ; white or clayed, $838,458. But 

 there was exported of refined sugar to the value of $1,214,658. It is 



