ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 39 



to me not long ago he had just two articles of food which he dared to eat; one 

 was potatoes, the other was eggs. But when he came to learn that chemists 

 were now soliloquizing about the manufacture of eggs he stood abashed for a 

 moment, when a sudden thought lighted up his countenance and he remarked that 

 it was a happy thing for him that he was almost through with this world of 

 adulterations. Think you of flour, the basis of bread, the staff of life, as it is 

 frequently called, being or having been adulterated with alum, carbonate of 

 soda, hydrated sulphate of lime, silicate of alumina, bone dust, terra alba 

 and chalk. 



What shall we say of sugar? Dr. Letheby informs us England and Amer- 

 ica consume annually 41-4 pounds of sugar per capita. We being the largest 

 sugar-consuming nation on the face of the globe, it becomes us to look well to 

 its purity. 



Sugars are divided by chemists into a number of kinds or classes. But for 

 our purpose we will only make mention of two. ( 1 ) Sucrose, including cane, 

 beet and maple sugars, which are identical and contain the same amount of 

 sweetening powers. ( 2 ) Glucose, known sometimes as grape or starch sugar. 

 This glucose sugar is largely manufactured in this country by boiling starch or 

 amylaceous substances in diluted sulphuric acid, and using lime or marble 

 dust (which is lime) to neutralize the acid, but if completely neutralized it 

 loses much of its sweetness and becomes bitter, consequently the sugar usually 

 contains acid. 



This glucose sugar maybe, and frequently is, largely used to adulterate 

 sucrose sugar and its syrups. 



So also is starch, gum, dextrine, marble dust, chalk, sand, bone dust, com- 

 mon salt, muriate of tin and prussiate of iron, or a blue made from the horns, 

 hoofs, hair, etc., of animals, cooked together to be used in the finer grades of 

 sugar for the toothsome epicure. 



Sucrate of lime is sometimes found in small quantities in maple sugar 

 from the elements of plant food contained in the sap. Sugar will combine with 

 lime, oxide of lead, oxide iron, etc. It will also associate with itself sulphuric 

 acid and comport itself very differently from that acid. This sucro-sulphuric 

 acid is capable of forming a large class of salts which are soluble in a solution 

 of sugar. Glucose has the same power of forming compounds as the sucrose, 

 receiving the names of glucosates and gluco-sulphates. On analyses of several 

 samples of glucose syrup an excess of free sulphuric acid was found in them. 

 One sample contained in a gallon 48-48 grains of sulphate of lime, 88-14 of free 

 sulphuric acid, and 440-12 grains of lime. 



The fact of its containing a large amount of free sulphuric acid renders it a 

 dangerous adulteration for the daily uses of the many. Its relative sweetness 

 compared with cane sugar is as 1 to %% of glucose, Consequently this may 

 account for our good housewives losing more or less of their sweetmeats since 

 the adulteration has been in vogue. 



It has long been a mooted question with us why the little busy bee should 

 rise in his might to defend his habitation against the approaches of his neighbor 

 homo. This sagacious little insect must have had forebodings of his neighbor's 

 intentions to counterfeit his honest self-deposited nectar, known to commerce 

 as honey. Therefore his aversion to the homo race. It is said to be a notorious 



