Sugar Producing Plants. 473 
being that the molasses is either sold for direct consump- 
tion or distilled, the saccharate processes not being appli- 
cable for the extraction of sugar. 
Crude or raw sugar from a factory is now almost always 
sold to a refiner to be turned into white or yellow sugar. 
Refineries resemble raw sugar factories in a few points 
only. They are very large places containing storehouses 
and cooperages as well as the machinery. A fair sized re- 
finery will work 200 tons of raw sugar in twenty-four hours 
and the general process, I will briefly describe. On arriving, 
the raw sugar is melted in a large cistern of hot water in 
which arms revolve. Sugar is put into the water until the 
contents of the cistern are half water and half sugar. This 
liquor is then pumped up to the top of the building and 
heated boiling hot. Next it is filtered through cloth bags, 
from which it runs very clear and limpid. After this it goes 
.to the char tanks. These are immense cylindrical iron 
vessels containing about 25 tons of charred bones or animal 
charcoal as it is called. 
This substance has the peculiar property of decolorising 
liquor. A dark brown syrup often being in contact with 
it for a short time will become as clear as water. After 
passing through these it is collected in cisterns, concen- 
trated in vacuum pans and the masse cuite worked off in 
centrifugals. Owing to the action of the char, the sugar is 
white or light yellow according to how much charcoal has 
been used in proportion to sugar melted. The syrups that 
run from the centrifugals are boiled up again and allowed 
to crystallise out, or are sold for consumption according to 
their strength. On the whole, the process is much simpler 
than that used in a raw sugar factory, but everything is on 
a much greater scale. A very important part of a refinery 
is the char house, this is a place where the char is reburnt 
after having been used in order to serve again, which it is 
made to do many times, until finally being exhausted it is 
sold for artificial manure. 
Concerning the chemistry of sugar, | can say but little, as 
it is too extensive and complicated a subject to be dealt 
