16 



ture of beet sugar in this country. Pis. 17 to 20 of the exhibit give 

 an excellent idea of some of the typical forms of construction which 

 have been adopted for this purpose. 



STORAGE OF THE BEETS. 



The factory must provide storage for many thousand tons of sugar 

 beets. The device generally used is a shed or open bin with a trough- 

 shaped floor along the bottom of which there extends a canal made of 

 metal or masonry, which reaches from the storage place to the fac- 

 tory. This canal or sluiceway is covered with boards before the bins 

 are filled with beets. When it is desired to transfer the beets from a 

 given shed to the factory, these boards are pulled up one at a time 

 and the beets allowed to fall into the canal, where they are caught up 

 by a constantly flowing current of water and carried into the factory. 



WASHING, WEIGHING, AND SLICING THE BEETS. 



A large part of the adhering soil is removed during the hydraulic 

 transportation of the beets, but in order to make the washing opera- 

 tion perfect the beets are passed through a special washing machine 

 on their way to the slicing apparatus. In the modern factory the 

 washed beets are weighed by an automatic scale, from which the super- 

 intendent or factory proprietor can learn at any moment the quantity 

 of beets entering the factory during a given period, and compare it 

 with the yield of sugar obtained and the richness of the beets as shown 

 by the chemist's report. After the beets have been weighed they fall 

 into the slicer, where they are cut into small slices having a V-shaped 

 cross section by means of corrugated knives radially placed on a 

 revolving disk. The storage sheds and the washing, weighing, and 

 slicing machines are shown on pis. 21 and 22 of the exhibit. 



EXTRACTION OF THE SUGAR FROM THE BEETS. 



The extraction of the sugar from the sugar beet by means of pres- 

 sure has given place to the more advantageous and more modern "dif- 

 fusion process." This operation is conducted in a series of from 12 

 to 14 closed metal tanks connected by an elaborate system of pipes 

 and valves, known in the sugar factory as the f ' diffusion battery. " 

 Each tank or "cell" in the battery holds one or more tons of beets, 

 according to the capacity of the factory. The operation of the "bat- 

 tery " is as follows : 



A cell is filled with slices of beets and the top door closed. Hot 

 water is then admitted at the bottom until all of the space not occu- 

 pied by the slices is filled with water. While the water is flowing 

 into the first cell a second cell is being filled with beet slices, and as 

 soon as this second cell is filled the conveyor which brings the slices 

 to the "battery" is adjusted to deliver them into a third cell, and so 



