CANE SUGAR. 



Sugar. The process given in " Sugar and the Sugar Cane," and which is 

 essentially the same as that given by Geerligs, 8 prescribed a diffusion in boiling 

 water for fifteen minutes, about 50 grms. of megass and 250 c.c. of water 

 being used. Following on the experiments of Pellet 9 , this process is not 

 sufficient to extract all the sugar, and he recommends the use of Zammaron's 

 process. 



Geerligs 10 has confirmed Pellet's observations on the analysis of megass 

 in so far that he found a higher polarization of the extract on repeated boilings ; 

 extraction in a Soxhlet apparatus with alcohol was, however, found to give 

 results agreeable with a fifteen minutes' boiling. The higher results found on 

 a longer boiling he attributes to a gradual solution of hemicelluloses, and 

 comes to the conclusion that the fifteen minutes' boiling gives accurate results. 



N orris 12 was unable to find any evidence of the solution of hemicelluloses 

 on prolonged boiling, and with finely divided megass recommends a digestion 

 of one hour as sufficient to extract all the sugar. In case a single extraction 



is made, the results are calculated as under 



Grms. 



Weight of megass . . . . . . 50 



Weight basin, fibre and extract 459 



Weight basin 212 



Weight of extract and fibre 247 



Allowing the megass to contain 45 per cent, fibre, the weight of the fibre 

 is 22-5 grms.; then the weight of the extract is 224'5 grms. Then if the 

 extract polarizes 3'0 the percentage of sugar in the megass is 



30 X 26 X 247 X 100 



50 

 the density of the extract being taken as unity without sensible error. 



Davoll 11 suggests with good reason the necessity of making two determi- 

 nations of water in megass ; one on the fresh sample and one on that after 

 preparation for sugar assay, results being calculated back to original moisture. 



Glucose is determined in the extract obtained as above. 

 Fibre is obtained as described for fibre in cane. 



It is customary in many sugar houses to determine the fibre in megass as 

 under. An analysis gave the following results : water, 48-50 per cent. ; 

 sugar, 4'82 per cent. ; purity of last mill juice, 78*62; then solids in solution 



4-82 X 100 



in megass = = 6-13 and fibre in megass = 100 48-50 6-13 = 

 lo'bZ 



45 37 per cent. A possible error is introduced here by the acceptance of 

 the purity of the last mill juice as being the same as that of the residual juice 

 in the megass ; to determine this quantity the writer proceeds as follows : 

 about 20 grms. of megass are completely extracted in a Soxhlet apparatus, the 

 extract evaporated to a volume of 50 c.c. and the total solids in the extract 



478 



