REPORT OF THE CHEMIST. 



41 



erected many years ngo by the celebrated Mr. Rillicux, I became convinced that the 

 open kettles were the greatest insurmountable impediment to every serious progress 

 ill our sugar industry, and that without radically changing this system of evapora- 

 tion, or rather of toasting the juice, the discussion of increasing its volume would bo 

 either useless or premature. 



Having pegged at this obstacle for a number of years without intermission, I had 

 at hist the satisfaction to see that our planters commenced to move in the matter, 

 and that these old clumsy things, the kettles, were turned out of a goodly number of 

 sugar-houses. Now, at least, our planters might do more work, and having once en- 

 tered upon the road to real progress, it might be hoped that they would not stop at 

 1ho open steam-pans, the next worst, evaporator known, and long since set aside by 

 all sugar manufacturers who were in the habit of using the polariscope and examin- 

 ing I he losses or changes which their products suffered through faulty treatment in 

 the eonrse of manufacture. 



Thinking that these perhaps a little too lengtny remarks were necessary to render 

 my answers more intelligible and just to all concerned in the matter, I will now pass 

 on to yonr questions. 



u 1. Has the diffusion process been tried in Louisiana any further than indicated 

 in Dr. Krstz's report ?" 



Yes; the two old apparatus constructed in 1874 were moved to a plantation in 

 Saint Charles Parish 1he year after, for the purpose of demonstrating the great ad- 

 vantages of the central-factory system for the manufacturing of sugar. As the plan- 

 tation was low and only suited for rice, a large amount of cane had been brought 

 from distant plantations situated on the banks of the Mississippi River, and it was 

 calculated that the cane might be economically transported by old coal-barges towed 

 up and down systematically. The season, however, being exceptionally late, the 

 cane did not mature before the middle of November, and the unripe cane, which had 

 been cut and for days left at, the landings, and on the barges also, exposed to the 

 weather, suffered considerably from these unforeseen and unavoidable delays. Expe- 

 rience then and since has proven that it is not advisable to transport large masses of 

 cane by water, and where this modo of transportation is still employed, the barges 

 or vessels should never load more cane in one day than could be delivered from them 

 at night or the next day. 



After the poorest lots of cane had been worked up, the yield exceeded a percentage 

 of 8 per cent, in first and second sugars several times, notwithstanding the very un- 

 satisfactory arrangement of the purgery, its coolers, &c. At that time the sugar- 

 wagons now used were an unknown convenience, in our sugar-houses at least. 



In 1870, a good year, and 1877, the worst we ever had, the same old machinery was 

 again t-et to work upon a much smaller quantity of cane, mostly produced on the 

 plantation, but no records were kept or obtainable. 



The plantation had no cane crop in 1878, but in 1879 a small experiment was again 

 made under my supervision ; but as the sugar-house had been run down by the par- 

 ties who preceded us, I could only convince myself that even under the most adverse 

 and wretched conditions diffusion would still be greatly superior to mill work, be- 

 cause, notwithstanding the dilapidated condition of the dii'fusers, which, if properly 

 made, should have lasted forever, and in spite of many delays and stoppages which 

 ought not to occur, we averaged about 81 per cent, of normal juice from 1U0 pounds 

 of cane. 



The lower part of our old dill users consisted of a large cast-iron box of a triangu- 

 lar shape, intended to make the opening for the discharge of the diffusion-bagasse as 

 large as possible. This arrangement proved to be the most, awkward in practice, 

 while in principle or theory, fully borne out by experience, it was perhaps the most 

 improper one that could have been selected. Besides this, the large iron castings riv- 

 eted together, which formed this part, would crack or leak, and thereby rob the ap- 

 paratus of one of its principal merits, to-wit, that of not being subject to breakages 

 or repairs. But while this part of the apparatus had to be condemned entirely, its 

 upper portion, comprising the valves and pipes, also required so many alterations 

 that it would have been cheaper to make the whole thing new than to attempt re- 

 modeling it. 



In this connection it may, perhaps, not be amiss to observe that a simpler, better, 

 and, in every respect, moro perfect apparatus might now be constructed for about 

 one-third of tho money which our old ones had cost us, and cheapness, as well as per- 

 fection, is one of the greatest desiderata to our Louisiana sugar industry. 



u 2. How many factories in the State are now using the process?" 



None. The only thing that our planters had seen of diffusion, in tho way of a prac- 

 tical demonstration, was our first, by far too expensive, and, moreover, so compli- 

 cated apparatus, that they very naturally felt as if such a thing would never do for 

 the work upon their plantations, and in this I think they were perfectly right; 

 consequently, it would have needed another ocular demonstration to prove that tho 

 difficulties in constructing a better, moro labor-saving apparatus, had been exagger- 



