8 TlMEHRI. 
of the distillery, this is not of so much consequence, as 
the sulphur finds its way to the field, along with the filter 
press refuse. On the other hand some particles of sulphur, 
with a most distressing obstinacy, will take up one atom 
too much oxygen, thus converting themselves into suit 
phuric acid, instead of sulphurous acid as required ; this 
goes into the box and starts a private fa6lory of glucose, 
which shows itself very plainly in the large amount of 
molasses which comes away from the ' masse cuite, in the 
centrifugals. To prevent this the fumes can be filtered 
through gas coke placed on perforated trays. Care must 
however be taken that the hot fumes do not ignite the 
coke, which would be attended with disadvantages. 
The juice on leaving the sulphur box enters the ' juice- 
heater/ There are some who prefer to sulphur hot, in 
which case the juice-heater would come before the sul- 
phur box ; those in favour of sulphuring cold declare that 
there is much more * inversion' in the box when the 
juice is hot. The most serious argument in favour of 
sulphuring hot is that the juice heater avoids the corrosive 
erTe6ls of the sulphur gas, which attacks every metal and 
quickly eats them away. 
I once imported a sulphur box made entirely of fire 
clay, and thought that I had done a very clever thing and 
had solved the difficulty of corrosion ; we started, and as 
soon as it got hot I heard 'rink', r tink/ and the whole 
apparatus splintered to atoms, so we had no opportunity 
of seeing whether that material would resist the corrosive 
effect of the gas. No metal can. Lead is the best, but 
that is so liable to melt that we have to be content with 
copper, and constantly renew the metal part of the appa- 
ratus. The fumes have no effecl: on wood. 
