STJ6AE. 



1G3 



tains, besides vegetable extract, 226 grains of solid matter, con- 

 sisting of sulpliurefc and potash, in the following proportions : — = 



Sulphur . . .40 grains 



Lime . . . 156 



Potash . , . 30 „ 



226 grains 



They do not think it likely that the potash exists in fresh plan- 

 tain juice as carbonate, but rather that tliis salt is the product of 

 decomposition, arising from a compound of potash and a vegetable 

 acid, such as tartaric or oxalic acid present in the fresh juice ; be 

 this as it may, any utility derivable from the plantain juice is 

 evidently owing to the potash it contains. 



They then give as a substitute for Eamos' liquid, and to be 

 used in a similar way, the following — 



Take of subcarbonate of potash 2 ounces, avoirdupois ; sul- 

 phur, 2j ounces ; best British lime slaked, 1| lb. ; mix them into 

 a paste in an earthen pan or Avooden tub, with one quart of water 

 (warm) and when thoroughly mixed, pour in ten gallons of boiling 

 water — rain water is the best to use — and stir from time to time 

 until it has cooled, when it may be drawn off from the sediment 

 and kept for use. If rain water cannot be obtained, the purest 

 water obtainable may be used. 



One of the causes most fatal to West Indian prosperity, is that 

 exuberance of advantages which they enjoy from serenity of cli- 

 mate and fertility of soil — causes which, in the absence of proper 

 stimulus to industry and improvement, have led to an improvident 

 system of cultivation, and to a blind and ignorant adherence to 

 wasteful methods of manufacture. 



The cane is believed to contain from 90 to 95 per cent, of its 

 own weight of saccharine juice ; and yet (as Mr. Fownes, a Pro- 

 fessor of Practical Chemistry in University College, London, in- 

 forms us, in an excellent paper " On the Manufacture of Sugar in 

 Barbados,"* from which much of what follows has been borrowed) 

 owing to the defective construction of the mills, hardly so much as 

 50 per cent, is obtained, although he believes it practicable, by an 

 improvement in the mills, to obtain from 70 to 75 per cent, ; and 

 of the remaining 10 or 15 per cent, which he regards it as impos- 

 sible to extract, much, if not the whole, might, I conceive, be ob- 

 tained, by macerating the pressed canes or megass, as it issues from 

 the mill, and repassing it through the rollers ; and, be it remem- 

 bered, that from 40 to 45 per cent, of saccharine juice is nearly, if 

 not altogether, equivalent to a similar per centage of sugar ; so 

 that by these initiatory improvements alone, and with little addi- 

 tional trouble, the prodnce of sugar might be nearly doubled from 

 any given quantity of canes. 



Erom the action of lime-water when added in a slight excess to 

 the cane jaice or ravr liquor, as it is vernacularly termed, immedi- 

 ately on issuing from the mill, as well as from tlie effect produced 



* See the " Pharmaceutical Journal" for June, 1849, p. 15, et seq. 



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