HISTORY OF THE 
50 
[book V, 
through the pores of the clay, unites intimately 
with, and dilutes the mellasses, 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 process, accord¬ 
ing to SJoane, was first discovered in Brasil, by ac¬ 
cident; “ 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 mel¬ 
lasses, dissolves and carries witlv it so much of the 
sugar, that the difference in quality does not pay 
for the difference in quantity. The Trench plant¬ 
ers probably think otherwise, upwards of four hun¬ 
dred of the plantations of St. Domingo having the 
necessary apparatus for claying, and actually carry¬ 
ing on the system.* 
* The loss in weight by claying is about one-tbird- y thus a pot of 
6olbs. is reduced to 4olbs. but if the mellasses which is drawn off in 
this practice be reboiled, it will give near 40 per cent*-of sugar j so 
that the real loss is. little more than one-sixth ; but the distillery in 
that case will suffer for want of the mellasses, and on the whole I be¬ 
lieve, that the usage of the English planters in shipping Muscovado su¬ 
gar, and distilling the mellasses, is more generally profitable than the 
system of claying. 
