ON DIFFERENT SPECIES OF SUGAR. 3l5 



©r diminntion of the products of the cane, as of other 

 plants. According to bim 14° indicate twenty-five pounds 

 eleven ounces of sugar to a hundred pounds of juice ; 

 and, as in the most favourable circumstances the cane does 

 not yield above half its weight of juice, a hundred pounds ^^. c^nTuf svk 

 of the cane cannot produce more than thirteen of raw su- gar, or about 

 gar. If we speak of refined sugar, this product must be ^^.^ o i • 

 reduced at least one third; since raw sugar appears to con-^ 

 tain not much less than this proportion of melasses. The 

 proportion of dry to liquid sugar however is yet to be ascer- 

 tained. INo doubt it will vary according to the strength of 

 the plants, but it deserves to be inquired into, and I shall 

 attend to it when I resume my examination of the canes of 

 Malaga. To return to the muscovado, or raw sugar. 



When we consider this honeylike mass, such as it is afforcl- Muscovado 

 ed by the evaporation of the juice, that is with its sweet and ^""S j" "^e if» 

 agreeable taste modified by the slight bitterness of its ex- ^^ j.gfi,jijjo-. 

 tractive principle, we may reasonably conjecture, that the 

 oriental nations, after they had discovered it, and placed it 

 among the condiments adapted for seasoning their insipid 

 rice, would employ it for many centuries in this state, 

 as they did honey ; and we may presume it was froai the r&- 

 semblance of honey to the raw^ sugar then in use, and not to 

 refined sugar, that some of the ancient naturalists termed 

 sugar " another kind of honey, that is formed in reeds.'* 

 Honey itself, the only production that has any real resem- 

 blance to muscovado, not being capable of any process of 

 refinement to improve its qualities, they would naturally 

 continue long of the opinion, that raw sugar was equally in- 

 susceptible of that degree of perfection, to which it hag 

 been brought in modern times: and if we consider the 

 number of ages that elapsed, from the time when corn be- 

 gan to be the general food of man, to that in which he dis- 

 covered the art of making fermented bread, we shall find 

 -this conjecture respecting raw sugar extremely probable. 

 Besides, it is proved by the historical researches of Du- 

 t;hrone, that toward the end of the fourteenth century raw 

 ^ugar, without any farther purification, was an article of 

 trade in Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, &c. 



Put if the refinement of the honey of the cane have hap- p^rt of tha 



pily 



