REFINING BEET SUGAR. 341 



The number of clayings to be employed, depends upon 

 the quantity of coloring matter contained in the sugar ; 

 two are usually enough to render sugar merchantable ; 

 but in order that the sirup may flow off free from any tinge 

 of yellow, three must be employed. 



When the operation of claying is completed, the loaves 

 are placed upon their bases, that the white sirup by which 

 the points are softened may diffuse itself through the mass. 



At the end of eight or ten days the loaves are taken out 

 of the moulds and placed in a stove-room, in which they are 

 dried. 



The method of whitening by clay is certain, but it 

 possesses the great fault of converting into sirup nearly ^ 

 of the sugar operated upon ; and if the sugar is adhesive, or 

 the grains of it very fine, the quantity of sirup formed is 

 still more considerable. Whenever I have worked upon 

 sugars of this description, I have melted them over, and 

 freed them from their adhesiveness, by boiling them down 

 with a quantity of animal charcoal. 



Brown sugar made from beets, when refined, generally 

 yields in molasses or nonconverted sirup* between ^ and \ 

 of its own weight, and it loses by claying at least ^. 



The sirups which are produced during these various 

 operations, are usually boiled without the addition of any 

 foreign substance, and the product of these boilings i« 

 thrown from the cooler into the demi-bdtardes, where they 

 become crystallized ; these form the large loaves of sugar, 

 weighing between 22 and 27 lbs. known in commerce 

 under the name of lombs. 



It has been attempted to substitute the method of 

 whitening by alcohol for that by claying ; this process is 

 founded upon the power which alcohol possesses, of dis- 

 solving the coloring principle without acting upon the 

 sugar. I followed this mode two months, making use of 

 no other alcohol than what I procured from the distillation 

 of my molasses. I confined myself in this process to 

 leaching the loaves of sugar contained in my moulds with 

 alcohol of 35' ( = sp. gr. 0.852) of concentration ; 

 covering the moulds over so as to prevent loss by evapora- 



* The molasses or sirup which flows from the mould when it is put 

 upon the earthen jar afler crystallization is called nonconverted sirup ; 

 that which is procured by claying, converted sirup; the last is purer, 

 lighter colored, and better tasted than the first. 



29* 



