SOLUBLE SALTS IN THE SUGAR CANE. 89 



to that procured from canes grown more inland. The 

 quantity of melasses is always greater, and the sugar more 

 deliquescent than usual; the greater part of the salts drain 

 off with the melasses, but there is always a portion adher- 

 ing with the colouring matter to the crystals, and this 

 causes deliquescence. I have seen sugar, on the wind- 

 ward coast of Barbadoes, manufactured from such canes, 

 the melasses from w T hich was as salt as if it had been mixed 

 with strong brine. 



These saline constituents being soluble, and forming 

 highly deliquescent compounds, cannot be extracted from 

 the cane-juice, but pass off in the melasses, they exert an 

 injurious influence upon the sugar, and the process of 

 manufacture should therefore be as rapid as possible, to 

 prevent the ill effects of prolonged contact with them. In 

 the juices of good canes they exist in very minute quanti- 

 ties, averaging from 2 to 4 parts in 1000. Hervey thus 

 describes their action : — " Saccharine juices always contain 

 a greater or less quantity of salts, and it is well known 

 that sea salt combines with cane sugar, giving rise to a 

 deliquescent compound, containing 6 parts of sugar for 1 

 part of salts, and this remains in the melasses in the state 

 of uncrystallized syrup. But the chloride of sodium is not 

 the only salt which can combine with sugar, and exercise 

 an injurious action on crystallization. This process is 

 impeded by various salts. Of these the halogenous occupy 

 the first rank. Even at the temperature of striking, the 

 carbonates of potash and soda react on sugar, rendering 



