MITCHELL — MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR. 1 85 
But there was one result from this trial sufficiently note- 
worthy. It was clear that the cane could be sliced and 
dried in commercial quantities, and several of those con- 
cerned in the matter determined to extract the sugar on the 
spot; accordingly, more than one attempt was made to carry 
out the slicing, and every difficulty was, apparently, over- 
come when the building erected for the plant was, unfortu- 
nately, burned. One of the principal difficulties hitherte 
had been that of drying the sliced cane, to avoid this, in 
1845 Messrs. Constable and Miehml introduced their method 
on the estate of Ste. Marie, the property of Major Beausca- 
rin, in Guadeloupe. It was as follows : — The canes, which 
were sliced at the rate of one ton in 20 minutes, fell into 
metallic baskets capable of holding each that amount. The 
baskets were moved by a central crane, and around the 
crane, at equal distances, were placed 6 copper vessels ad- 
justed to receive the baskets when filled. These copper 
vessels were filled to such an extent with water that when 
the basket, full of sliced canes, was lowered into any one, 
the liquid rose to the surface. The basket No. 1, with its 
contents, having been thus dipped into vesssel No. 1, was 
allowed to remain unmersed till such time as the sliced 
canes had parted by displacement with a due proportion of 
their sugar to the water in vessel No. 1 ; basket No. 1 was 
then hoisted out by the crane and consigned to vessel No. 
2, where a second proportion of sugar was displaced, and 
so on throughout the series. In the meantime a fresh bas- 
| ket, full of sliced cane, was consigned to No. 1 vessel, the 
liquid in which abstracted a further proportion of sugar, 
and so on, till the contents of the first vessel were as fully 
saturated with sugar as the law of displacement allowed, 
