SUGAR. 



157 



method of economizing labour in many operations to which it has 

 been seldom or never applied as yet, the advantages of which, even at 

 the present day, remain to be estimated at their true value. 



Within the last thirty or forty years mechanical engineers have 

 brought the old model horizontal roller mill to the highest state of 

 perfection. The first letters patent ever issued in England, in con- 

 nection with sugar manufacture, were granted to " Willoughby, 

 Francis, Lord; Hyde, Laurence; and De Marcato, David," for the 

 " makeinge and frameinge of sugar mills ;" and are dated and num- 

 bered A.D. 1663, February 4 — No. 141. Mills have since been made 

 of three, four, and five rollers ; but those consisting of three rollers 

 have been found to give the best results with the least expenditure 

 of power. Since the above date, upwards of 80 patents have been 

 taken out relating to machinery for extracting the juice from the 

 sugar-cane, all of which, with some dozen or so of exceptions, are 

 merely adaptations of, or improvements in connection with, roller 

 crushing mills. 



The inspissation of the Juke appears to have been carried on in India 

 from the earliest times of which any account is discoverable. Al- 

 though the mill was universally without shelter, the boiling apparatus 

 on the other hand was invariably covered by a shed. The range con- 

 sisted of a series of (generally) eleven earthen boiling pots, suspended 

 between two parallel mud walls about 20 feet long, 2 feet high, and 

 18 inches apart, the interstices between the pots being filled in with 

 clay. A flue was thus formed, at one end of which was a large 

 circular iron pan, exactly like the present copper, under which was 

 the fireplace — a hole dug in the ground. The iron pan served as 

 the teache. 



The arrangement just described has undergone no alteration or 

 improvement up to the present day ; neither has the process adopted, 

 which is as follows: After the juice has been concentrated to the 

 consistence of sling — goor or jaggery as it is termed — it is placed in 

 pots and handed over by the ryot, or farmer, to the goldar, or sugar 

 boiler. When it has to bear carriage a long distance it is further 

 concentrated by the ryot, until it resembles an inferior description of 

 concrete. By the goldar the pot extract is put into bags of coarse 

 gunny or sack-cloth, which are hung over a number of large earthen 

 vessels, and on water being sprinkled on the tops of the bags the 

 molasses drains away by displacement. The sugar from the bags is 

 then mixed with water in a pan like a large copper, sunk in a 

 cylindrical cavity in the ground which serves as a fireplace. After 

 being allowed to boil for a short time, an alkaline solution prepared 

 from the ashes of the plantain tree is added, and subsequently some 

 milk. The liquor is next strained through cotton, and the former 

 process is repeated until a sufficient concentration has been attained. 

 It is then poured into earthen pots with curved sides, large at the 

 top and pointed at the bottom where they are plugged with a plantain 

 leaf, and placed in a curing shed on a wooden grating at some little 

 distance from the ground. Here they are allowed to drain into 

 vessels placed underneath. A layer of moist leaves of the Valisneria 

 spiralis is placed on the top, which after some time is removed, and, 



