SUGAR CULTURE. 



267 



determination of the maximum heat to which the 

 juice should be exposed in the successive boilers. 

 The ingenious analysis of sugar, starch, gum, and the 

 ligneous principles, made by Messrs. Gay Lussac and 

 Thenard, the labors'tarried on in Europe with grape 

 and beet-root sugar, and the investigations of 

 Dutrone, Proust, Clarke, Higgins, Daniell, Howard, 

 Braconnot, and Derosne, have facilitated and pre- 

 pared the attainment of these degrees of perfection ; 

 but nothing has been done in the Antilles. 



The amalgamation of metals, on a large scale, in 

 Mexico, cannot, certainly, be improved without a 

 previous examination, during a long stay at Guana- 

 juato, or Real del Monte, of the nature of the 

 metals placed in contact with the mercury, the 

 muriate of soda, lime, &c. ; in the same manner, to 

 improve the technical manipulations on the sugar 

 plantations, we must begin on several of those in 

 Cuba, with an analysis by a chemist acquainted 

 with the present state of vegetable chemistry, of 

 small portions of juice taken from the several kinds 

 of cane, in different soils, and at various seasons of 

 the year. Without this preliminary labor, under- 

 taken by some person from one of the most celebra- 

 ted laboratories, and possessing a complete knowledge 

 of the operations of sugar-making from beet-root, we 

 may obtain some partial improvement, but the 



