NEW PROCESS FOR EXTRACTING SUGAR. 
163 
ART. XL. — NEW PROCESS FOR EXTRACTING SUGAR FROM 
THE SUGAR CANE. 
By M. Melsens. 
The following account of the new and important method 
of extracting sugar from the sugar-cane, is abridged from 
the first of two long articles recently published in the Cour. 
de V Europe. 
The great difficulty which has been experienced up to 
the present time in the preparation of sugar, has been owing 
to the rapidity with which it, when dissolved in water, 
alters by exposure to the air in hot climates. It must, how- 
ever, be clear, since the cells of the sugar-cane are them- 
selves full of sugar dissolved in water, and this solution 
can be kept for a long time in them, without undergoing any 
alteration at all, that if the same conditions which exist in 
nature could only be obtained in practice, there is no reason 
why an artificial solution of sugar may not be kept unalter- 
ed for a considerable space of time ; or in other words, why 
water should not be used for the purpose of dissolving the 
sugar out of the crude juice expressed from the cane. 
The difficulties, indeed, are not owing to the sugar or to 
the water, but to the air, and the ferments produced by its 
action on the crude sap of the sugar-cane. The object of 
M. Melsens was, then, to exclude the air from the sap when 
extracted from the cane, and to prevent the formation of 
any ferments which might change the character of the 
saccharine matter. This he has succeeded in doing by 
availing himself of the well-known affinity of sulphurous 
acid for oxygen gas. Sulphurous acid, however, alone was 
found not to answer the purpose ; the sulphuric acid, pro- 
duced by the absorption of oxygen by sulphurous acid) 
acting on the sugar, converts it into grape sugar. This 
difficulty has been overcome by using sulphurous acid com- 
bined with a powerful base, which, as the sulphurous acid 
