134 



MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR. 



as the clarifier. The clarified liquor runs first into this 

 copper, and as evaporation proceeds, it is ladled into the 

 others progressively until it arrives at the tayche where the 

 concentration is completed. The liquor being drawn into 

 these vessels after defecation, the fire is maintained as 

 briskly as possible, and as in boiling the liquor continues 

 to throw up much scum from its imperfect defecation, a 

 person is stationed at each copper to remove, with a 

 skimmer, the scum as it rises, and sometimes by brushing 

 back the froth from one vessel to another, until it accumu- 

 lates in the last, when it is removed. I cannot better 

 exemplify this laborious operation than by quoting the 

 words of E. Packer, Esq. in a communication to one of the 

 agricultural societies of Barbadoes : — " Our old planters 

 seemed fully alive to the necessity of removing this sub- 

 stance, as it rose in scum on the surface of the liquor in 

 the tayches ; and one of the points in which they were most 

 rigid with their slaves was the scumming of the liquor. It 

 is painful to recur to the means by which the boilers were 

 made to accomplish this laborious process, but every one 

 must remember that the liquor was not considered to have 

 been perfectly cleaned until every boiler had his shirt 

 sticking to his back with the perspiration from his body. 

 Such means are fortunately not now at our disposal ; but 

 it seems to me that we have not looked to the necessity 

 which still remains for thus cleansing the liquor, and I 

 believe that if there is one cause operating more than 

 another in producing that bad name which some of the 



