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There are also in almost all parts of the district a class of re- 

 finers different from those who are refiners and only refiners 

 by profession. These are the larger raiyats in the villages, 

 many of whom combine commercial dealings with agriculture. 

 They receive the gur from the raiyats in their vicinity, and 

 sometimes also purchase it in the adjacent hats } and after 

 manufacturing what they thus purchase, they take their sugar 

 to some exporting mart and sell it there to the larger mer- 

 chants. 



566. " We shall now see what the process of manufac- 

 ture is. But there are several methods of refining, and two 

 or three sorts of sugar produced. We will take them in 

 order, and describe first the method of manufacturing "dhulua 

 sugar that soft, moist, non-granular powdery sugar, used 

 chiefly by natives and specially in the manufacture of native 

 sweet-meat." 



567. The pots of gur received by the refiner are broken 

 up and the gur tumbled out into baskets, which hold about 

 a maund each and are about 15 inches deep ; the surface is 

 beaten down so as to be pretty level and the baskets are 

 placed over open pans. Left thus for 8 days, the molasses 

 passes through the basket, dropping into the open pan beneath 

 and leaving the more solid part of the^wr, namely the sugar, 

 in the basket. Gur. in fact, is a mixture of sugar and molasses 

 and the object of the refining is to drive off the molasses, 

 which gives the dark colour to the gur. 



568. ''The eight days' standing allows a great deal of the 

 molasses to drop out, but not nearly enough ; and to carry 

 the process further, a certain river weed, called Shyala? which 



This is probably Vallisneria verticillata. All kinds of aquatic weeds 

 going by the name of Shyala, other weeds have been sometimes used by mis- 

 take in place of V. verticillata, only with partial success. Vallisneria Octan- 

 dra (pata-shyala) and Ceratophyllum verticellatum (Jhanji) which are occa- 

 sionally used for this purpose, do the bleaching only imperfectly. The subject 

 needs to be worked up scientifically, as probably it is not merely the continu- 



