The Diffusion Process. 65 
diffusion by 20 per cent. In other words the excellence 
of the extraction more than overcame the bad handling 
in the boiling house. Had the diffusion juice been 
handled as well as the mill juice, the increase of dry 
sugar by diffusion would have been 42^ per cent. 
Is it too much to hope that when the system is 
adopted in Demerary, we shall combine good extraction 
with good handling ? Granted that a somewhat dif- 
ferent treatment to that we are accustomed to is 
required in order to obtain the best results, surely 
our scientific chemists and experienced sugar makers 
will very soon discover it. When I assure you that the 
diffusion juice, though somewhat diluted it is true, is 
transparent and limpid, that when heated to the boiling 
point it throws up hardly any scum, that it requires very 
little lime on account of its freedom from albumenoids 
etc., and that the proportion of uncrystallisable sugar 
is the same as in the mill juice, what practical sugar 
maker will say that he doubts his ability to recover as 
much dry sugar in proportion as he does now from mill 
juice? I am confident that we shall obtain more, for, 
apart from the chemical influence of foreign matter in 
the juice, the mechanical loss caused by scums and 
sediments is to a great extent avoided by diffusion. 
Now I am aware that it is useless to show the physical 
possibility of this complete extraction of the sugar from 
the cane, unless it be proved that it would be a com- 
mercial success. If the process is too expensive it will 
not be adopted. 
First, what is the money equivalent of the megass cor- 
responding to one ton of first crystals obtained from a 
mill? 
! 
