Defecation of Cane Juice by Electricity, 75 



supposed to set up a galvanic a£lion. The result was a 

 beautifully clear limpid liquid ; but alas ! on application 

 of lime and heat this clear liquid was found to be subjeft 

 to the usual coagulation, and its beauty was therefore 

 due, chiefly, if not wholly, to the mechanical a6lion of the 

 filtration it had undergone. 



Subsequently, Mr. GiLL, since dead, devised an appa- 

 ratus which was tried at Plantation Hague, and after- 

 wards, in 1879, at Plantation Caledonia, Wakenaam. 



This apparatus consisted of an oblong wooden box, 

 which atted as a bath to a sort of galvanic battery, con- 

 sisting of a square double box, each side of which formed 

 a V. This box was made of zinc and the sides were 

 smeared with a " patent composition" made, apparently, 

 of a mixture of tallow, iron filings and some acid. The 

 juice was supposed to enter into this zinc box and to 

 percolate through sand under it, (it stood on four short 

 legs J and then to be filtered through diaphragms made 

 of zinc, perforated in large holes, and covered with cloth. 



This apparatus may have been a success in the labo- 

 ratory but was far too slow for a fa6lory. The sand and 

 filters may, perhaps, have caught impurities, but they so 

 impeded the flow of juice, that, in a very short time, the 

 bath filled up ; and the whole arrangement disappeared 

 in a sea of cane juice, and then everything came to a 

 stop till the apparatus was relieved. 



Nevertheless, in spite of its defe6ls, and notwithstanding 

 that a large portion of the juice was very imperfe6lly, if 

 at all, treated by the ele6lricity, sugar was, on one 

 occasion, made without the addition of any lime at all. 

 And, what is even more significant, some of this cane 

 juice, thus treated, was stored in the ordinary liquor vats 



K2 



