June l, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



483 



SUGAR FROM THE ARENGA PALM. 



The following suggestions on the regular cultivation of the Arenga palm 

 for' the more general manufacture of sugar are by Dr. J. E. de Vry. In 

 vol. iv., p. 281, will be found a note on Palmyra palm-sugar. 



"When I went from Holland to Java, in 1857, I sojourned a month in 

 Ceylon, and there became acquainted with the Borassus jiabelUjbrmis, 

 vulgarly called Palmyra palm, by the Englishmen living in Ceylon, and 

 among the products of indigenous industry I remarked, as taking a fij'st 

 rank, the sugar sold by the natives under the name of jaggery. The 

 great number of these palms induced me, in a conversation with persons 

 having interests in Ceylon, to express the idea that it would be possible 

 to put them into regular cultivation for obtaining a good sugar crop from 

 them. But my sojourn in Ceylon was but temporary ; and, moreover, 

 I had not the recpiired apparatus for making the necessary researches. I 

 occupied myself more closely with this question, when, having penetrated 

 in the interior of Java, my attention was drawn to the great amount of 

 sugar the Javanese living in the districts called Preanger Regentschappen 

 obtained from the Area palm {Arenga saccharifera). Professor Rein- 

 wardt had affirmed that this sugar was only glucose ; but I recog- 

 nised that, although the natives extract it by a very rude and entirely 

 primitive mode, it contains a great proportion of cane-sugar. Their 

 process is as follows : — As soon as the palm-tree begins to blossom, they 

 cut off the part of the stem that bears the flower ; then flows from the 

 cut a sap containing sugar, which they collect in tubes made of bamboo 

 cane, previously exposed to smoke, in order to prevent the fermenta- 

 tion of the juice, which, without this precaution, would take place very 

 quickly under the double influence of the heat of the climate and the 

 presence of a nitrogenous matter. The juice thus obtained is imme- 

 diately poured into shallow iron basins, heated by fire, and is thickened 

 by evaporation, till a drop falling on a cold surface solidifies ; the 

 degree of concentration attained, the contents of the kettle is put in 

 forms or great prismatic lozenges. Several thousand pounds of sugar 

 are thus obtained yearly. I have collected some of the sap in a clean 

 glass bottle, and I found that the unaltered juice does not contain any 

 glucose, but a nitrogenous matter, which, by the heat of the climate, 

 quickly converts a part of the cane-sugar in glucose. In order to prove, 

 without employing any artificial means, that the juice exuding from 

 the tree contains pure cane-sugar, I collected a sample directiy in abo- 

 hol ; the nitrogenous principle is thus eliminated by coagulation ; a 

 mixture of equal parts of juice and alcohol has been, after filtration, 

 evaporated on the sand-bath to the consistence of syrup. I brought 

 this syrup with me on returning from Java, and during the voyage the 

 syrup became solid, presenting very hue and well-defined crystals of 

 cane-sugar, immediately recognised as such by all the experts. At the 



