58 
MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR IN BARBADOES. 
When lime-water is added to fresh and heated juice until 
reddened litmus paper shows the slightest possible trace of 
alkalinity, the whole heated to the boiling-point, and after 
standing a few minutes placed upon a paper or cloth filter, 
a perfectly clear, pale, yellow liquid runs through, leaving 
on the filter a greenish-grey mass, having the composition 
already mentioned — namely, consisting chiefly of azotized 
organic matter combined with lime, and the phosphates of 
lime and magnesia. The filtration is particularly rapid and 
easy. The clear liquid evaporated to a syrupy state over 
the open fire throws up no scum whatever, and colours but 
little in this condition, exposed to spontaneous evaporation 
in a shallow vessel, it furnishes a mass of crystallized sugar 
sometimes perfectly dry, and sometimes accompanied by 
more or less yellow uncrystallizable syrup, in which the 
presenceof common salt in large quantity can be recognized, 
this body having, as is well known, the power of forming 
with cane-sugar, a highly soluble and deliquescent com- 
pound. Even when the whole crystallizes, however, and 
and very little common salt can be detected, the resulting 
sugar absorbs water when exposed to a very damp atmos- 
phere, and becomes moist or wet, indicating the presence 
of some deliquescent material in the juice. 
The statement, therefore, that good cane-juice contains 
no saccharine matter but crystallizable sugar, and that the 
production of molasses or uncrystallizable syrup is wholly 
due to the excessive heat employed in the common process, 
must be received with some reservation. No doubt crys- 
tallizable sugar to a great extent is destroyed in the boiling, 
and especially in the last pan, where the boiling point of the 
liquid rises 235° or 240°, or even higher, and that the result 
of such mismanagement is a very great increase in the pro- 
portion of uncrystallizable mother liquor ; but the whole is 
not so produced. Unless, therefore, means could be devised 
for removing the deliquescent compounds which pre-exist 
