SUGAR. 87 



stated by the inventor as the first cost to the manufacture. Ac- 

 cording to these subsequent experiments pursued precisely in M. 

 Achard's method, 11 52 parts of fresh beet-root yielded 18 p?rts of 

 raw muscovado, which was brown and ill tasted, and would require 

 successive purifications with the loss of from a third to nearly half 

 its weight, to bring it into the state of fine saleable sugar. 



Professor Lampadius of Frieburg has since pursued a series of 

 experiments upon the same material : but he candidly confesses, 

 that in one of therri made on a hundred quintals of the root, the 

 sugar obtained sold for somewhat less than the entire cost of the 

 materials and the process ; this, however, was in a cold unfavour- 

 able year, and did not include the profits to be obtained from all 

 the residues in yielding, by fermentation, an ardent spirit or kind 

 of rum. 



Chemical Properties of Sugar. 



Pure sugar appears either in a regularly crystallized form, or in 

 shining white crystalline grains : both in candy and in loaf it is 

 very hard and brittle ; when rubbed in the dark it is highly lu- 

 minous. 



The earths proper do not seem to have any action whatever on 

 supar ; but th<* alkaline earths unite with it. When lime is added 

 to a solution of sugar in water, and the mixture boiled for some 

 time, a combination takes place. The liquid still indeed retains its 

 sweet taste ; but it has also acquired a bitter and astringent one. 

 A little alcohol added to the solution produced a precipitate in 

 white flakes, which appeared to be a compound of sugar and lime. 

 Sulphuric acid precipitated the lime in the state of sulphat, and 

 restored the original state of the sugar. When the compound of 

 sugar and lime was evaporated to dryness, a semitransparent tena- 

 cious syrup remained, which had a rough bitter taste, with a cer- 

 tain degree of sweetness, 



The fixed alkalies combine with sugar, and form compounds not 

 unlike that which has been just described. Potass destroys the 

 sweet taste of sjrup more completely than lime ; but when it is 

 neutralized by sulphuric acid, and the sulphat precipitated by alco- 

 hol, the sweet taste is completely restored. When alcohol is agi- 

 tated with the compound of sugar and potass dissolved in water, 



G 4 



