107 



corded it, it was yet successful beyond all expectation in solving those 

 problems which must ever attach in cane-juice work to the application 

 in filter-presses on a considerable manufacturing basis, of any matrix 

 whatever. It removed at a stroke all necessity for the yet more ex- 

 tensive operations which, as you know, had previously been proposed. 



It is needless here to weary you with the details of this day's run, which, 

 with its antecedents rather than with its consequents, demonstrated 

 conclusively, as is believed, that while the filtration of the entire body 

 of defecated juice thus, with brown coal, stands well among the mechan- 

 ical possibilities, its application can by no moans now conceived with 

 us be rendered remunerative to the Louisiana industry. This your dis- 

 cernment will already have made quite as clear to you by what precedes, 

 as it can by any present comparison between the weights and polariza- 

 tions of its resulting products and those customary to the establishment 

 in its treatment of like raw materials. Sinch data, indeed, await your 

 command, but indicate to me no variation in rendement beyond that at- 

 tributable to the accidents and incidents common with e very-day factory 

 experience. There occurred nothing of the oft and persistently pre- 

 dicted clogging, either of pumps, conduits, presses, or cloths. The cloths 

 at the end of twenty-four hours showed no loss of transmitting power, 

 and were washed with surprising ease. 



In quality of products, no doubt, some advantage was recognized to 

 accrue, bone-coal not being employed in the factory. Notwithstanding, 

 in this particular also, disappointment was felt. In no other respect 

 than this, surely, did the results of this experiment compare even favor- 

 ably with those secured by Mr. G. L. Spencer, in 1886, with the Rem- 

 mers and Williamson wood-char process, under the patronage of your 

 Department at its Magnolia Station, as these stand officially reported in 

 your Bulletin No. 15 (pp. 20-25, inclusive). So much more effective has 

 vegetable char than brown coal been shown also in our own work, both 

 as a filtering and as a defecating agent, that, having abandoned the lat- 

 ter altogether, experimentation since several weeks with the former, in 

 a laboratory way, with seed-cane, has now been in seemingly successful 

 progress here. The following is not an unfair comparison, so far as ex- 

 perience yet teaches, between the two articles applied to juices somewhat 

 deteriorated by long storage of canes : 



Lignite presents other disadvantages, as well, in comparison with 

 wood charcoal. Upon concentration to sirup, juice filtered with what- 

 ever percentage of it, whether reduced with the low temperatures of 

 vacuum evaporation or under atmospheric pressure, gives invariably 

 au additional precipitate of matter probably rendered insoluble solely 

 by the increase of density, No such precipitate lias at any time, with any 

 defecating agent, been observed after lilt ration with wood coal. I low- 

 weak is its absorptive power, beyond that for coloring matters, is shown 

 by the fact that, after filtration through paper alone, an improvement 

 cf but 0.03 in the exponent was secured to sirups from the ordinary lime 



