788 
SUGAR 
shown. (See Fig. 3.) This allows the barbs 
to project to do their work, and yet holds 
all together tolerably firm—tolerably firm, 
for these spears are very easily tom out 
of the husk; and after a sting is extracted 
they are often left in the wound, like the 
tiny splinters before mentioned. When 
torn out and laid on a slip of glass they are 
scarcely visible to the naked eye; but under 
the microscope they appear as in Fig. 2. 
Stings do not all have the same number 
of barbs. There are as few as seven and 
as many as nine. The two spears are held 
against each other as shown in Fig. 3, and 
it will be observed that the shape and the 
arrangement of the three parts leave the 
hollow, E, in their center. The working of 
the spears also pumps down poison, and 
quite a good-sized drop will be collected on 
their points, as can be readily seen under 
the microscope. J. R. Bledsoe found a 
valve that lets it out of the poison-bag 
into this wonderful little pump, but pre¬ 
vents its returning. The drop of poison, 
after lying on the glass a few minutes, dries 
down and seems to leave a gummy sub¬ 
stance that crystallizes into strange and 
beautiful forms, a diagram of which is 
shown in Fig. 4. 
SUCROSE.—See Cane ' Sugar. 
SUGAR.—The term sugar is applied by 
common consent to the white sugar com¬ 
mercially prepared from the sugar cane 
and the sugar beet, or sucrose. To the 
layman, and possibly to the chemist, the 
word “sugar” means white granulated 
sugar; if it is powdered, the adjective 
“powdered” is added to sugar as “pow¬ 
dered sugar;” if it is moist and soft, and 
either white or only slightly yellow in 
color, it is termed “soft sugar;” while if 
it is brown in color, moist and soft, it is 
termed “brown sugar.” In distinction the 
word “sugars” refers to the whole class 
of sugar, of which there are some 150 or 
more, many of which are rare and some of 
more common occurrence. Grape sugar is 
the sugar dextrose, while fruit sugar is the 
sugar levulose. See Invert Sugar. 
Common sugar is composed of the ele¬ 
ments in the following proportions: Car¬ 
bon, 12 parts; hydrogen, 22 parts; oxy¬ 
gen, 11 parts. It is found free in nature 
in many roots, as beets and turnips; in the 
stems of plants, as sorghum, sugar cane, 
cornstalks, and in the sap of trees like 
maple, birch, etc., and in many fruits. It 
has never been commercially prepared from 
the elements. 
A white sugar or granulated sugar is 
practically pure sucrose, while the varying 
off-colored sugars ranging from light- 
yellow to brown are mostly mixtures of 
crystals of sucrose surrounded with molas¬ 
ses. These yellow or brown sugars are all 
produced by the refineries from the liquors 
after the production of the white grades. 
Formerly one had brown sugars direct 
from the cane, but now these are not pro¬ 
duced to any extent in this country. 
Louisiana sugars in hogshead used to be 
these old brown sugars. 
There has always been a discussion as to 
whether white sugar made from beets is 
the same in every particular as that made 
from sugar cane. Both contain practically 
the same amount of sucrose, also water and 
mineral matter, but the organic impurities 
which may amount to from .05 to .1 per 
cent are often different in beet white sugar 
from those in cane white sugar. These im¬ 
purities may play a part in some manufac¬ 
turing processes, and prevent the use of 
beet sugar in all places where cane sugar 
has been used. However, as a sweetener 
and for table use or for jelly or preserving 
work it is doubtful whether there is any 
notable difference between beet and cane 
sugar. See Cane Sugar. 
SUMAC (Rhus ).—This genus is repre¬ 
sented in the United States by about 15 
species. Most of them are shrubs, but a 
few are small trees and one is a shrubby 
vine. The large handsome leaves are tri¬ 
foliate, or odd-pinnate presenting a fern¬ 
like appearance. The pinnate-leaved spe¬ 
cies are highly ornamental as foliage 
plants, and in autumn display the most 
brilliant red and scarlet colors. The small 
flowers are borne in dense clusters, or pan¬ 
icles, at the ends of the branches or in the 
axils of the leaves. The stamens and pis¬ 
tils are usually in different flowers, one 
tree or shrub bearing only staminate flow¬ 
ers and another only pistillate. In the 
common staghorn sumac the staminate flow¬ 
ers are in large white clusters while the pis¬ 
tillate are in dense green clusters, which 
