14 



sistently at them, were undertaken by myself with a great deal of re- 

 luctance. Knowing the amount of work already done on this subject 

 and the uniformly unsatisfactory results, it was hardlj 7 possible that 

 where much of the time had to be occupied with affairs of the sugar- 

 house that anything worthy of note could be accomplished. 



However, that which was attempted was very thoroughly and sys- 

 tematically executed. Caustic lime, carbonate of lime, superphosphate 

 of lime, and many other reagents, besides brown coal, wood char, and 

 other substances, were all tried in the cells of the small battery, not 

 only as an aid in mechanical filtration, but also to assist in defecation. 



While it was found that diffusion juices filtered niu2h more easily 

 than mill juices, none of the different clarifying agents employed seena 

 to have assisted the subsequent filter press filtration to any appreciable 

 degree, and the analysis are not thought to be of sufficient value for 

 publication. 



Aside from the work on filtration, however, careful and systematic 

 analyses of the raw, sulphured, and clarified juices were made three 

 times daily, and of the sirup once daily throughout the season, and 

 during two runs after the work on filtration had been discontinued a 

 complete chemical control was maintained throughout the house, each 

 stage of the manufacture being carefully gauged, samples taken, and 

 analyses made. 



The season's work was, for convenience, arbitrarily divided into five 

 runs two of them on stubble and three on plant cane. 



FIRST STUBBLE RUN. 



The cane of this run had nearly all been ground before my arrival at 

 Calumet, and but few analyses of juices were secured. Judging, how- 

 ever, from the analyses made, the juices were the richest of the season, 

 but thecane being second-year stubble, contained a very high percentage 

 of fiber. There was on this account not only a less quantity of juice in 

 the cane, but also a poor extraction of that present, the woody-fibrous 

 cane making good mill work impossible. 



The yield, however, was very good, the ratio of glucose to sucrose in 

 the final molas&es being higher than any ever reported before by a 

 Louisiana sugar house. Its analysis gave sucrose double polarization 

 23.56 per cent, glucose 42.09, and purity 29.70. 



One thing worthy of much notice, in this run, was the boiling of mo- 

 lasses, for third sugar, in which the glucose was already in actual excess 

 of the sucrose. This molasses contains 33.20 per cent sucrose and 33.74 

 per cent glucose, and gave a massecuite which grained excellently in 

 the wagons, " swung" out well in the centrifugals, and yielded 12.06 

 pounds of commercial sugar per ton of cane. 



The extraordinarily high content of glucose compared with sucrose in 

 the final molasses is probably due in part to a high percentage of glucose 

 present in the raw juice. Owing to the non-arrival of the chemical ap- 



