474 Canadian Record of Science. 
with in a paper of this sort, however, I may say that the 
sugars belong to the great chemical division called the 
hydrocarbons and are divided into two great groups, called 
the glucose group whose formula is C, H,, O,, and the cane 
sugar group whose formula is C,, H,, O,,. Of the first named 
group, the principal member is common glucose, a widely 
distributed substance in nature, which is usually artificially 
prepared by treating starch with sulphuric acid. It is often 
considered as a deleterious substance and used to adulterate 
sugar, but, although it is my natural enemy, as a sugar 
maker, I must admit that it is just as harmless and whole- 
some as the best of sugar, and its only fault is that it is not 
over one-third as sweet. It may be produced in many 
curious ways, for instance in the human body by the irrita- 
tion of the medulla oblongata, or from this very desk by 
means of sulphuric acid. To this group belong also levu- 
lose, inverted sugar, sorbin, inosit, and many rarer kinds. 
The chief member of the second group is cane sugar or 
saccharose, which we have been discussing. It is called 
cane sugar, but occurs in many plants as the sugar beet, 
the maple, etc., as we have seen. To this group belong 
milk-sugar, maltose, and many others. 
Strange as it may seem, no chemist has ever been able to 
make sugar from a foreign substance. The plants know 
how to do it, but we cannot. Nor has anybody ever been 
able to turn glucose into cane sugar, although the difference 
in their formule is but a molecule of water. Could this 
be done easily, no more sugar-canes nor beets would be 
grown, but we would use up old rags, sawdust, and all sorts 
of detritus. Hvery year somebody reports success in this 
quarter, but no results are forthcoming. The sugar world 
is used to such scares, but it got a bad one a little while ago 
when Prof. Remsen, of Johns Hopkins’ University, made 
from one of the derivatives of coal-tar, toluene, a substance 
called benzoyl sulphonic amide, or as it is now termed, sac- 
charine. This is one of the chemical curiosities of the 
present day. It is a white powder, slightly soluble in 
water, and 280 times as sweet as sugar, that is, one pound 
