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MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR. 



composed of two gutters or shallow trays lined with copper 

 or lead) into a wooden cistern or receiver, lined with lead, 

 and placed within the mill, first passing through a strainer 

 composed of a wooden box, the bottom of which is perforated 

 with gimlet holes. A child or aged person is usually 

 employed to keep this strainer and the mill-trays from 

 being choked by the fragments of megass &c. which fall 

 down from the rollers with the juice. This is done by 

 thrusting a long cane or stick along the trays under the 

 rollers, and as this is seldom changed, it, as well as the box 

 strainer, becomes saturated with acid liquor, and cannot 

 fail to hasten the development of acidity, and viscous 

 fermentation in the passing juice. The impurities thus 

 collected are removed in pails, and carried to the cattle or 

 horse troughs. The liquor accumulates in the receiver 

 until the clarifiers are ready for it, and when the mill is 

 working rapidly it often remains a long time there before 

 room is made for it in the boiling-house. It is conveyed 

 thence from the mill, either in a long open gutter usually 

 lined with metal, or underground by a leaden pipe. From 

 the cold juice being so long in contact with these conduits, 

 they are more or less coated with glutinous ferment, which 

 assists the atmospheric action by rapidly inducing viscous 

 fermentation. I have seen from this cause alone a rapid 

 deterioration in the quality of sugar during a single day's 

 work, and the taint being once communicated is not got 

 rid of, as a portion of the liquor is usually kept in the 

 boiling-house all night to cool the coppers, and this mixes 



