374 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
eral salts. Bj its use the juice, the crushed cane, the scum 
and the filters are made to yield the same large drains of color¬ 
less sugar. No care, no study, no hurry are rendered neces¬ 
sary. As long as the bisulphite exists in the smallest quanti¬ 
ty in the liquid, it prevents an alteration in the sugar. 
Such are the startling experiments of a man of science who 
had no powerful mills for crushing the reeds; who worked with 
such means as he had at his command in the city of Paris, in a 
chemists laboratory; the results of whose experiments scarcely 
exceed the simplicity of the instruments with which he labored. 
1st. He broke, or rather tore the cane to pieces by means of 
a hand beet grater, watering the pulp during the operation 
with a solution of the bisulphite of lime. He pressed out the 
juice with a small press; boiled, filtered, and evaporated it to 
the density of about one-third what the cold syrup should be, 
filtered again, and left it to a slow evaporation in a current of 
dry warm air. This gave him a mass of candy, from which it 
was impossible to extract any molasses. 
2d. The crushed and pressed pulp was wet with water mixed 
with bisulphite, and submitted to another pressure, which pro¬ 
duced another juice less rich. This juice was treated in the 
same manner as the first, and gave the same large grained cane 
sugar. 
3d. The last experiment was repeated. 
By an analysis with alcohol he had discovered that the 100 
pounds of reeds contained about 18 pounds of sugar. He also 
found that by grinding and pressing he could extract but 60 
pounds of juice, and from that he could procure but 12 pounds 
of sugar. There was therefore a loss of 6 pounds left in the 
crushed cane, which had been thrown away on the sugar plan¬ 
tation. But in this experiment he had greatly exceeded the best 
efforts of the sugar manufacturers. The usual amount obtained 
by them was 6 or 7 pounds of unrefined sugar, thus making a 
a loss of 5 or 6 pounds against them in molasses, besides the 
amount left in the crushed cane and entirely lost. 
