466 Canadian Record of Science. 
and the liquor boiled down to a thick mass without any 
purification. Much of this sugar is refined in Montreal to- 
day, and it resembles earth in appearance. Sugar is also 
made, as we know, from the maple by simple concentration 
of the sap, which, however, is so pure that the product is 
very fine. That made from the date palm and called jaggery, 
is also merely juice boiled down in any kind ofa pot, but n 
countries where agreat deal of sugar is produced, as in Cuba 
or Java or Germany and France, things are carried on in a 
different way, factories work all the way from 200 to 2,000 
tons of raw material in twenty-four hours, and are worth 
anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 a piece. 
I will give a general description of a beet sugar factory, 
inasmuch as it is much the more perfect and extensive and 
will include nearly all that may be said about a cane sugar 
one. 
On approaching the factory, the beets are seen in great 
heaps outside in process of delivery by the growers. From 
these heaps they are carried by various appliances to the 
first step in the process of manufacture, that is the washing 
The conveyance of these beets was long a puzzle to manu- 
facturers until a German named Riedinger, a few years ago 
hit upon water sluices as the best means, and now they are 
everywhere adopted. The beets are tossed into the sluice 
which carries them along to an elevator. This lifts them 
up a certain distance and throws them into the first washer, 
which is a drum revolving in a tank of water. They are 
next thrown into a second washer which consists of a water 
tank in which great arms revolve and throw the roots about, 
carrying them forward at thesame time and throwing them 
on to an elevator which lifts them up to the top of the 
building. If the washing has been properly done, the beets 
are now quite clean and ready to be cut up. 
The form into which the roots are now reduced depends 
entirely on the method of extraction to be subsequently fol- 
lowed. In former times they were rasped up into an almost 
impalpable pulp and afterwards the liquor was pressed out 
by hydraulic presses of great power, or by roller presses of 
eI ce 
