1:884.] Juice of the Cane and of the BeeUvoot. 525 
With regard to the nature of these impurities, books 
treating on the manufacture and refining of sugar are very 
misty and misleading on this most important point. In 
studying them one would naturally infer that these im- 
purities were of the same class, and without variation in 
their relative quantities in the juice of the canes grown in 
different localities : if this were the case, then the rum ob- 
tained on fermenting the molasses would have the same 
aroma and flavour wherever the cane was grown ; yet it is 
well known in the commercial world this is not the case. The 
aroma and flavour of Jamaica rum, for example, are very dif- 
ferent to the aroma and flavour of the rum made in Barbadoes. 
When out in the West Indies, some years ago, I made an 
examination of these impurities in the juice of canes grown 
in Demerara, Barbadoes, Trinidad, St. Kitts, &c.* I found 
these vegetable impurities are composed of several different 
classes of substances, and possessing of course different 
properties, and therefore no one purifying agent will remove 
all the classes. I also found that some of the classes are 
almost entirely absent in the juice of the canes grown in 
one locality, whilst they largely predominate in the juice of 
canes grown in another locality. This variation in the 
quantity of the classes of impurities in the juice of canes 
grown in different localities goes far to explain the very 
different opinions that have been expressed by manufacturers, 
in different sugar countries, on different manufacturing 
processes that have been tried from time to time, whether 
in the form of purifying agents or machinery. 
Some years before visiting the West Indies a Brazilian 
nobleman informed me that neither the Brazilian Govern- 
ment nor private owners could make their sugar estates pay, 
and he stated it was their intention to establish a central 
factory, to which the canes from the different estates would 
be sent for the extraction and manufacture of the sugar. 
The Brazilian Government shortly afterwards offered me, 
through this nobleman, the entire management of the 
factory ; but although I considered the plan an excellent 
one, and the terms offered me were all that I could desire, 
as my terms would be their terms, I declined the offer for 
reasons I need not enter into. This led me, however, on 
my visit to the West Indies, to carefully investigate the 
manufacture of sugar from the cane in this as well as in 
other aspects ; and I came to the conclusion that for any 
* I had not an opportunity of examining the juice of the canes grown in 
Jamaica, which I greatly regretted. 
