FOODS, FOOD-STUFFS, AND FOOD-ADJUNCTS. 35 



(Zizania aquatica, L.), which was unsuccessfully intro- 

 duced some years ago, both as a food and as a paper- 

 material, into the Lincolnshire fens. 



2. SUGARS. 



SUGARS are colourless, soluble, crystalline solids, 

 having the composition C 12 H 22 O n (' saccharons ') or 

 C 6 H 12 O 6 ('glucoses'). Sugar has never been made 

 synthetically, though readily formed from starch or 

 cellulose. Fahlberg's ' Saccharine,' now introduced 

 for the use of diabetic or gouty subjects, prepared 

 from coal-tar, is not a true sugar, nor is it in any way 



CO 



nutritive. It has the composition C 6 H 4 e0NH, and 



is many times sweeter than cane-sugar, but passes 

 through the body unchanged.* 



The chief sugars are Cane, Maple, Beet, Sorghum, 

 Palm and Starch. 



CANE-SUGAR is the product of the large grass Sac- 

 charuin officinarum, L.,a native of Southern Asia, grow- 

 ing ten or twelve feet high, and now largely cultivated 

 in tropical and sub-tropical countries generally. Our 

 supplies are now derived from the West Indies, Brazil 

 and Mauritius. The canes are crushed, and crystal- 

 line ' raw ' or ' brown ' sugar and uncrystallized ' mo- 

 lasses ' are obtained, subsequent refining yielding 

 White or Loaf Sugar, Treacle and Golden Syrup. 

 From the molasses Rum is distilled. 



MAPLE-SUGAR, though its production is somewhat 

 declining and it is almost entirely consumed in the 



* 'American Chemical Journal,' i, pp. 170, 425 ; ii, 181. 



32 



