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we could expect to find in cane juice — mucous, saccholactic or 

 saclactic, oxalic, and acetic acids. The three first named of these, 

 however, have never been traced, even in the most minute quan- 

 tities ; and if the latter be present, which, unfortunately, is but 

 too often the case, the addition of lime would only result in the 

 formation of acetate of lime, which is, as I have already observed, 

 an exceedingly difiicult crystallisable, very soluble, and deliquescent 

 salt. It has a bitter, saline taste ; 100 parts consist of 6i.5 acid, 

 35.5 lime, and it is easily recognisable by its taste in the molasses 

 made from sour cane-juice : so that, supposing the cane-juice sour, 

 every pint of acid present would require nearly half a pound of 

 lime for its neutralisation, independent of the quantity required 

 for the tempering or precipitation of the feculencies contained in 

 it, and would result in the formation of one-and-a-half pound of the 

 above mentioned highly deleterious salt. 



Suppose we boil the cane-juice prior to tempering it, we then 

 drive off a great portion of acetic acid, much less lime will be 

 required, and if we could, by filtration or subsidence, get rid of 

 the precipitated feculencies, we should make a tolerably good sugar ; 

 but as, under the present plan, we have no means of so doing, 

 the acetic acid, which is forming during the whole process of 

 evaporation (as fermentation still goes on), unites with the lime 

 before it can be dissipated by the heat, and thus not only forms 

 acetate of lime, but causes the re-solution of the precipitated 

 feculencies, thus rendering it necessary to add a fresh portion of 

 lime in the tache, a proceeding always to be avoided, if possible, 

 but generally necessary in boiling down sour liquor. Take a small 

 portion of cane-juice (hot or cold) in a tumbler, and temper it with 

 lime until the feculencies are precipitated and the flakes perfectly 

 visible, then add vinegar by drops, and it will be found that the 

 flakes will speedily disappear and be re-dissolved, showing that lime 

 has a greater affinity for acetic acid than starch, and that, although 

 when added to sour cane-juice, it neutralises the acidity, still that 

 result is a consequence, not the cause, of the application, and is 

 highly injurious. Lime is one of the greatest knovvTi solvents of 

 vegetable matter ; it dissolv^es albumen, gluten, gum and lignin, or 

 woody fibre, forming soapy compounds with wax, resin, and 

 chlorophyle. Ordinary cane-juice contains about three parts of 

 resin to every 100 of sugar, and the projection of a small piece of 

 soap into a tache full of granulating syrup will soon convince any 

 one of the effect likely to result from the presence of that material. 

 Although, by tempering hot, we get rid of a very great quantity of 

 the substances on which lime acts injuriously, a considerable portion 

 of them remain in suspension, the quantity of albumen contained in 

 the cane-juice not being sufficient to carry them all ofi'by coagula- 

 tion; on the addition of the lime, however, they are entirely dissolved 

 and as the impurities left behind consist chiefly of gluten, the 

 liability of the liquor to ferment is greatly increased by its re- 

 tention, that being the fermenting principle contained in wheat 

 and other vegetable productions prone to that process. 



