World’s Use and Supply of Sugar 277 
from cane; but it might just as well be called beet-sugar, 
since the sugar obtained from the beet is exactly the same 
chemically as that obtained from cane. This sugar is 
made up of monoclinic prisms — usually with hemihedral 
faces — and contains no water of crystallization. The 
crystals are colorless, transparent, and have a specific 
gravity of about 1.6 and a melting point of about 160° C. 
At this temperature there is no decomposition in the 
melted liquid, which solidifies on cooling to an amorphous 
glassy mass and will after a short time assume crystalline 
structure and become opaque. If heated to a higher 
temperature, decomposition takes place between 200° and 
210° C., when considerable gas is given off and a dark 
brown substance with a bitter taste called caramel is left. 
Sucrose is a strong reducing agent, which means that 
it is readily oxidized. It does not ferment until converted 
into invert sugar by the action of the yeast plant, or in- 
vertin from yeast, or by some acid. 
SUGAR IN NATURE 
The sugars are found very widely distributed through- 
out the plant kingdom. It is stated ' that more than one- 
half of the foods have a sweetish taste as compared with 
one-third that taste salty and about one-tenth bitter or 
sour. Sucrose, in addition to being present in large 
quantities in sugar-cane and the sugar-beet, is found in 
sorghum, in corn-stalks, in the sap of many forest trees, 
in seeds, in most sweet fruits, — usually associated with 
invert sugar, — in many kinds of roots, and in the nectar 
1 Surface, G. M., ‘‘The Story of Sugar,” p. 31. 
