SACCHARUM. 717 



which ought to be prepared with the good white sugar called cafetin^ 

 a name alluding to the peculiar shape of the loaf which was not un- 

 common at that time,' 



The importance of the sugar manufacture in the East was witnessed 

 in the latter half of the 13th century by Marco Polo ;' and in 1510 by 

 Barbosa and other European travellers ; and the trading nations of 

 Europe rapidly spread the cultivation of the cane over all the countries, 

 of which the climate was suitable. Thus its introduction into Madeira 

 goes back as far as a.d. 1420 ; it reached St. Domingo in 1494/ the 

 Canary Islands in 1503, Brazil in the beginning of the 16th century, 

 Mexico about 1520, Guiana about 1600, Guadaloupe in 1644, Martinique 

 in 1650,' Mauritius towards 1750, Natal" and New South Wales, about 

 1852, while from a very early period the sugar cane had been propa- 

 gated from the Indian Archipelago over all the islands of the Pacific 

 Ocean. 



The ancient cultivation in Egypt, probably never quite extinct, has 

 been revived on an extensive scale by the Khedive Ismail Pasha. 

 There were 13 sugar factories, making raw sugar, belonging to the 

 Egyptian Government at work in 1872, and about 100,000 acres of land 

 devoted to sugar cane. The export of sugar from Egypt in 1872 

 reached 2 millions oi kantars, or about 89,200 tons.* 



The imperfection of organic chemistry previous to the middle of the 

 18th century, permitted no exact investigations into the chemical 

 nature of sugar. Marggraf of Berlin ^ proved in 1747 that sugar occurs 

 in many vegetables, and succeeded in obtaining it in a pure crystallized 

 state from the juice of beet-root. The enormous practical importance 

 of this discovery did not escape him, and he caused serious attempts to 

 be made for rendering it available, which were so far successful that 

 the first manufactory of beet-sugar was established in 1796 by Achard 

 at Kunern in Silesia. 



This new branch of industr}?- ^^ was greatly promoted by the pro- 

 hibitive measures, whereby Napoleon excluded colonial sugar from 

 almost the whole Continent ; and it is now carried forward on such a 

 scale that 640,000 to 680,000 tons of beet-root sugar are annually pro- 

 duced in Europe, the entire production of cane sugar being estimated 

 at 1,260,000 to 1,413,000 tons.'' 



Among the British colonies, Mauritius,^^ British Guiana," Trinidad," 



1 Ordonnances des rois de France, ii. ^ Consul Rogers, Report on the Trade of 

 (1729) 535. Cairo for 1872, presented to Parliament. 



2 Several other varieties of sugar occurring ^Experiences chymiques faites dans le 

 in the medireval literature are explained in dessein de tirer tin veritable sucre de diverses 

 the Docuniente (quoted at page 404, foot- plantes qui croissent dans nos contries, par 

 note 7) p. 32. Mr. Marggraf, traduit du latin — Hist, de 



^ Yule, Book of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1871) VAcad4mie royale des sciences et belles 



79. 171. 180. &c. lettres, annee 1747 (Berlin 1749) 79-90. 



* Letters of Christ. Columbus (Haklnyt ^" Aiid also that of milk sugar, which was 



Society) 1870. 81-84. then much used on the Continent to adulte- 



^ De Candolle, G6ogr. botanique, 836. rate cane sugar. 



^ The value of the sugar exported from ^^ Produce Markets Review, March 28, 



Natal in 1871 reached the astonishing 1868. 



amount of £180,496 and £135,201 in 1876. ^'^ 2,255,249 quintals (one quintal = 108 



"Yet owing to the gold discoveries, the lb. avdp.) in 1876. 



propagation of the cane in Australia was ^^ 120,030 hhds (one hogshead = 1 792 



little thought of until about 1866 or 1867, lb.) in 1876. 



when small lots of sugar were made. " 114,968,384 lb. in 1876. 



