518 S A C C II 
The stream then from the receiver having filled the cla¬ 
rifier with fresh liquor, and the fire being lighted, the 
temper , which is commonly Bristol white-lime in powder, 
is stirred into it. One great intention of this is to neutralize 
the superabundant acid; to get properly rid of which, is 
the great difficulty in sugar-making. This is generally 
effected by the alkali or lime; part of which, at the same 
time, becomes the basis of the sugar. The quantity neces¬ 
sary for this purpose must, of course, vary with the quality 
both of the lime and of the cane-liquor. Some planters 
allow a pint of Bristol lime to every hundred gallons of 
liquor; but this proportion is generally found too large. In 
some parts of Jamaica, where the cane-liquor was exceed¬ 
ingly rich, very good sugar has been made without a par¬ 
ticle of temper. Too much temper prevents the molasses 
from separating from the sugar, when it is potted or put into 
the hogshead. 
As the fire increases in force, and the liquor grows hot, 
a scum is thrown up, which is formed of the mucilage or 
gummy matter of the cane, with some of the oil, and such 
impurities as the mucilage is capable of entangling. The 
heat is now suffered gradually to increase, until it rises to 
within a few degrees of the heat of boiling water. The 
liquor must by no means be suffered to boil: it is known to 
be sufficiently heated, when the scum begins to rise into 
blisters, which break into whitefroth. They appear in general 
in about forty minutes. The damper is then applied, and 
the fire extinguished; after which, the liquor is suffered to 
remain a full hour, if circumstances will permit, undisturbed. 
During this interval, great part of the'feculencies and impu¬ 
rities will attract each other, and rise in the scum. The 
liquor is now carefully drawn off, either by a syphon, which 
draws up a pure defecated stream through the scum, or by 
means of a cock at the bottom. In either case, the scum 
sinks down unbroken as the liquor flows ; its tenacity pre¬ 
venting any admixture. The liquor is received into a gutter 
or channel, which conveys it to the evaporating boiler, 
commonly called the “ grand copper;” and, if originally 
produced from good and untainted canes, will now appear 
almost, if not perfectly, transparent. 
In the grand or evaporating copper, which should be large 
enough to receive the net contents of one of the clarifiers, 
the liquor is suffered to boil; and as the scum rises, it is 
continually taken off by large scummers, until the liquor 
grows finer and somewhat thicker. This labour is continued 
until, from the scumming and evaporation, the subject is 
sufficiently reduced in quantity to be contained in the next 
or second copper, into which it is then ladled. The liquor 
is now nearly of the colour of Madeira wine. In the second 
copper the boiling and scumming are continued; and if the 
subject is not so clean as is expected, lime-water is thrown 
into it. This addition is intended not merely to give more 
temper, but also to dilute the liquor, which sometimes 
thickens too fast to permit the feculencies to run together, 
and rise in the scum. Liquor is said to have a good appear¬ 
ance in the second copper, when the froth in boiling arises 
in large bubbles, and is but little discoloured. When, from 
such scumming and evaporation, the liquor is again suffi¬ 
ciently reduced to be contained in the third copper, it is 
ladled into it, and so on to the last copper, which is called- the 
teache, probably from the practice of trying by the touch. 
This arrangement supposes four boilers or coppers, exclusive 
of the three clarifiers. 
• In the teache the subject is still farther evaporated, till it 
is judged sufficiently boiled to be removed from the fire. 
This operation is usually called “ striking,” i. e. lading the 
liquor, now exceedingly thick, into the cooler. 
The cooler, of which there are commonly six, is a shallow 
wooden vessel, about eleven inches deep, seven feet in length, 
and from five to six feet wide. A cooler of this size holds a 
hogshead of sugar. Here the sugar grains; i. e. as it cools, 
it runs into a coarse irregular mass of imperfect semi-formed 
crystals, separating itself from the molasses. From the.cooler 
it is carried to the curing-house, where the molasses drain 
ARUM. 
from it. Many of the negro boilers guess solely by the eyft 
when it is sufficiently evaporated for striking, judging by 
the appearance of the grain on the back of the ladle; but the 
practice most in use is to judge by what is called “the 
touch,” or taking up with the thumb a small portion of the 
hot liquor from the ladle; and, as the heat diminishes, 
drawing with the fore-finger the liquid into a thread. This 
thread will suddenly break, and shrink from the thumb to 
the suspended finger, in different lengths, according as the 
liquor is more or less boiled. The proper boiling height for 
strong muscovado sugar is generally determined by a thread 
of a quarter of an inch long. It is evident, that certainty in 
this experiment can be attained only by long habit; and that 
no verbal precepts will furnish any degree of skill in a matter 
depending wholly on constant practice. 
The curing-house is a large airy building, provided with a 
capacious molasses cistern, the sides of which are sloped and 
lined with terras, or boards. Over this cistern there is a 
frame of massy joist-work, without boarding. On the joists 
of this frame, empty hogsheads, without headings, are 
ranged. In the bottoms of these hogsheads eight or ten 
holes are bored, through each of which the stalk of a plan¬ 
tain leaf is thrust, six or eight inches below the joists, and 
long enough to stand upright above the top of the hogshead. 
Into these hogsheads the mass from the cooler is put, which 
is called “ potting;” and the molasses drain through the 
spongy stalk, and drop into the cistern, from whence it is 
occasionally taken for distillation. The sugar, in about 
three weeks, grows tolerably dry and fair. It is then said to 
be cured, and the process is finished. The curing-house 
should be close and warm, as warmth contributes to free the 
sugar from the molasses. 
Sugar thus obtained, is called “ muscovado,” and is the 
raw material from which the British sugar-bakers chiefly 
make their loaf, or refined lump. There is another sort, ; 
which was formerly much approved in Great Britain for 
domestic purposes, and was generally known by the name 
of Lisbon sugar. It is fair, but of a soft texture, and in the 
West Indies is called “ clayed sugar.” The process is con¬ 
ducted as follows-.—A quantity of sugar from the cooler 
is put into conical pots or pans, called by the French 
“ formes,” with the points downwards, having a hole about 
half an inch in diameter at the bottom, for the molasses to 
drain through, but which at first is closed with a plug. 
When the sugar in these pots is cool, and become a fixed 
body, which is discoverable by the middle of the top falling 
in, (generally about twelve hours from the first potting of' 
the hot sugar), the plug is taken out, and the pot placed 
over a large jar, intended to receive the syrup or molasses 
that drain from it. In this state it is left as long as the 
molasses continue to drop, which it will do from twelve to 
twenty-four hours, when a stratum of clay is spread on the 
sugar, and moistened with water, which, oozing imperceptibly 
through the pores of the clay, unites intimately with, and 
dilutes the molasses; consequently more of it comes away than 
from sugar cured in the hogshead, and the sugar, of course, 
becomes so much the whiter and purer. The pots remain 
for twenty days in this situation, after which the sugar is 
taken out, dried in the sun for some hours, and then taken 
to a large store-room, where it is kept in a pretty strong 
heat for three weeks. The process, according to Sloane, 
was first dicovered in Brazil, by accident. “ A hen,” 
says he, “ having her feet dirty, going over a pot of sugar, 
it was found under her tread to be whiter than elsewhere.” 
The reason assigned why this process is not universally 
adopted in the British sugar islands is this, that the water, 
which dilutes and carries away the molasses, dissolves and 
carries with it so much of the sugar, that the difference in 
quality does not pay for the difference in quantity. The French 
planters probably think otherwise ; upwards of four hundred 
of the plantations of St. Domingo having the necessary ap¬ 
paratus for claying, and actually carrying on the system. 
The loss in weight by claying is about one-third: thus, a 
pot of sixty pounds is reduced to forty pounds; but if the 
molasses 
