18  Development  of  the  Sugar  Industry.  )AmJanJl^;p1h9;?n- 
ties  of  success.  Napoleon  at  once  ordered  large  tracts  of  land  to  be 
set  aside  for  beet  culture.  Under  his  powerful  patronage  and  the 
guidance  of  the  best  scientists  of  the  time,  several  factories  were 
erected  and  the  new  industry  was  soon  established  upon  a  prosperous 
basis. 
The  overthrow  of  Napoleon  and  the  abolition  of  the  blockade 
opened  again  the  markets  of  Europe  to  the  supplies  of  tropical  cane 
sugar  and  it  seemed  for  a  long  time  as  if  the  new  beet  sugar  could 
not  compete  with  cane  sugar,  the  cheaper  product  of  tropical  slave 
labor.  French  statesmen,  however,  were  far-sighted  enough  to 
protect  the  new  industry  with  bounties  and  tariff  regulations,  so  that 
the  manufacture  of  beet  sugar  increased.  The  financial  difficulties 
which  the  industry  encountered  stimulated  greater  improvements  and 
economies  in  agriculture  and  manufacture.  This  policy,  after  fifty 
years,  placed  the  beet-sugar  industry  far  ahead  of  its  rival.  The 
cane-sugar  industry,  temporarily  handicapped  by  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  was  in  its  turn  forced  to  make  improvements,  and  this  it 
could  do  only  by  adopting  the  newer  inventions  and  discoveries  that 
had  been  worked  out  in  beet-sugar  manufacture.  It  is  worth  our 
while  to  mention  a  few  of  the  most  important  improvements  which 
have  been  made  in  sugar  manufacture  since  the  foundation  of  the 
beet-sugar  industry. 
The  first  improvement  was  the  vacuum  pan,  invented  by  the 
English  refiner,  Howard,  in  1813.  Previous  to  that  time,  sugar 
juices  had  been  boiled  in  open  kettles  at  high  temperature,  with  great 
losses  of  sugar  by  inversion  and  caramelization.  By  boiling  the 
sugar  solution  in  a  closed  apparatus,  from  which  the  air  had  been 
pumped,  the  temperature  of  evaporation  was  greatly  reduced ;  losses 
from  inversion  and  caramelization  were  prevented,  and  a  much 
whiter  sugar  was  obtained.  The  efficiency  of  the  vacuum  pan  was 
afterwards  increased  by  the  addition  of  the  condensing  column,  which 
was  invented  by  Davis  in  1829.  The  condensing  column  consists 
simply  of  an  upright  pipe,  some  35  feet  or  more  in  height.  Cold 
water  passing  downward  through  the  pipe  condenses  the  vapors 
from  the  vacuum  pan  ;  this  condensation,  aided  by  the  barometric 
weight  of  the  water  column,  produces  a  high  degree  of  vacuum. 
Another  great  invention,  of  about  that  time,  was  the  multiple 
effect,  devised  by  a  native  of  New  Orleans,  Norbert  Rillieux.  He 
conceived  the  idea  of  evaporating  sugar  juice,  not  in  one  but  in 
several  vessels,  and  of  so  connecting  these  that  the  hot  steam  from 
