H. E. ANNETT. 



The fact that the percentage loss of sucrose and total sugar 

 is about the same would appear to indicate that the sugar is actually 

 being burnt up in the case of date juice. In the case of the cane 

 juice a good proportion of the sucrose which disappears has been 

 inverted and not altogether destroyed. 



It is probable that the total destruction of so much sugar is 

 due to the use of earthenware pans. 



Owing to the structure of the furnace much of the sugar is cara- 

 melised. The date gurs and mollasses are much darker than the 

 corresponding products from the cane. This is almost certainly 

 largely due to this caramelisation of the sugar. Further, boiling 

 down the juice in earthenware pans requires a much longer time than 

 the same process would in iron pans and hence there is more oppor- 

 tunity for caramelisation to go on. One can see the sudden change 

 in colour which the date juice undergoes on being put into the pans. 

 From a colourless juice it turns brownish at once. 



QUANTITY OF SUGAR STORED IN THE DATE PALM. 



A tree which had been tapped at varying intervals during the 

 season was cut down. It was about 30 feet high and had been tap- 

 ped for some 18 years. The tree was sawn into logs at roughly every 

 5 feet from the base. By this means 6 logs were obtained. Mea- 

 surements of each log were taken and one of them weighed, but un- 

 fortunately a mistake was made in the weighment. However by 

 assuming the weight per cubic foot as 45lbs. an average figure for 

 woods, we can get a very near estimate of the weight of the whole 

 tree. The saw- dust obtained while sawing the tree into logs was col- 

 lected. The head of the tree, that is, the top log containing the tap- 

 ped surface, was sawn longitudinally into two pieces in order to get 

 a sample of the wood as saw-dust. We thus obtained 7 samples of 

 the saw dust. 



Each of the 7 samples of saw-dust was immediately analysed 

 within ten minutes of being collected. The sucrose and reducing 



