SUGAR. 
lignin, which is the principle of wood. If, then, 
sawdust be treated with sulphuric acid, it will 
be converted into gum, which by further treat- 
ment with the same acid, becomes sugar. The 
sawdust that under this process is perhaps the 
most speedily convertible into sugar, is that pro- 
duced from the very hard wood of hornbeam. 
Hemp and flax, the principal constituent of which 
is lignin, will both produce the same result as 
sawdust, under the same chemical agency of sul- 
phuric acid; and this power is so strongly pre- 
served through all the various changes they un- 
dergo, that sugar may be obtained from old 
hempen cloth or from linen rags—or more cor- 
rectly speaking, the lignin of these substances 
may be converted into sugar by the agency of 
sulphuric acid. The sugar of milk is of the kind 
we are now describing, but is less powerful than 
that from vegetable sources; and though it exists 
in smaller proportion in the milk of the cow than 
in that of many other animals, yet the sugar of 
cow’s milk is separated and granulated upon a 
large scale, in Switzerland, for pharmaceutical 
purposes. There is a further peculiarity in this 
sugar, which is, that its best ferment for the pro- 
duction of alcohol is the union of the other in- 
gredients composing the milk, that is to say, the 
milk in its unseparated condition, acted upon by 
a small portion of other milk already under vi- 
nous fermentation.—The third kind of sugar is 
uncrystallizable, but remains in the form of a 
thick dark syrup. It is still lower in saccharine 
qualities than the last, its ratio, as compared 
with the first kind, being no higher than four to 
ten. This is the kind of sugar formed by germi- 
nation of grain both natural and artificial. It 
is likewise found in the sugar-cane, in the beet- 
root, and in the maple, united with the crystal- 
lizable sugar, from which it separates under the 
form of a black thick syrup, known by the name 
of molasses and treacle. The sugar obtained from 
the various palm-trees, especially from the pal- 
myra-tree, or borassus flabelliformis, and known 
in India by the name of jaggery, is likewise of 
this description. To this we may add the sugars 
yielded by many of the boletus or mushroom 
tribes, and that also found in the liquorice-root. 
Sweetness to the taste is certainly one of the 
attributes of sugar; but, as we have already ob- 
served, it is an error to call it the sweet consti- 
tuent of organic matter, because there are other 
constituents more lusciously sweet. Pure sugar, 
obtained for common use through the labours of 
the refiner, carries with it assuredly, in a given 
weight, the greatest possible quantity of fer- 
mentable matter or alcoholic base; but it has 
not that intensely sweet and cloying flavour pe- 
culiar to brown sugar, to treacle and molasses, 
and to Spanish juice, neither of which affords 
anything like the same quantity of alcohol. The 
Spanish juice yields scarcely any; the molasses 
and treacle, when wholly free from crystallizable 
sugar, very little. The sweet, cloying, sickly fla- 
307 
vour of manna is universally known; it is sweeter 
than pure sugar, and yet contains no sugar, and 
therefore produces no alcohol. The peculiar ac- 
tion upon the palate that produces what is termed 
a sweet taste, is yet unknown; though the sweet- 
ness of pure sugar is always distinguishable from 
every other kind of sweetness. 
To make pure syrup requires twenty-nine 
ounces of the best refined sugar to a pint of 
water. If such syrup be diluted with water, a 
little gluten added, and the whole kept at the 
temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, it will 
speedily be converted into wine, the alcohol of 
which may be extracted by distillation. Thus, 
when sugar is cheap, moist or unrefined sugar, 
and even treacle, or sugar and treacle mixed, 
may be substituted for malt; and by the addi- | 
tion of hops and other flavouring substances to 
a vinous fermented solution of sugar, a much 
better liquor may be obtained than that brewed 
from malt, the sugar from which, being produced 
partly by germination and partly by chemical | 
conversion in the mash-tub, under the influence 
of the diastase of the malt, is inferior to and much 
less rich in alcoholic principle, than that used | 
for ordinary domestic purposes. 
If sugar be subjected, in its dry state, or nearly 
so, to the action of heat, it fuses and assumes the 
appearance of a dark-coloured syrup, which will 
harden on cooling. This readily dissolves in wa- 
ter, and also in alcohol, which makes it of use © 
for colouring liquors, and many luxuries of the 
table. If allowed to burn, it acquires a bitter 
empyreumatic flavour. Sugar thus fused will 
not again crystallize. It is termed, in this state, 
caramel by pastry-cooks, and essentia binia by 
porter-brewers. Though a very wholesome co- 
louring matter for malt liquor, its use is prohi- 
bited by law, in favour of a substance much less 
innocuous. 
Sugar will dissolve in water, in all proportions, 
but not in alcohol unless heated, and then only 
in very sparing quantities. It has likewise some 
chemical properties, which ought to be known to 
housekeepers. It has a very strong affinity for 
water, of which, in its pure form, it contains 5:3 
parts in every 100 of sugar. ‘This cannot be 
termed its water of crystallization, because it 
exists in uncrystallizable sugar, and in the mush- 
room-shaped concretions already mentioned. This 
constituent water cannot be separated, except 
by converting the sugar into a saccharate, the 
nature of which we will explain. Sugar, though 
not an acid, has the property of combining with 
certain metallic oxides, and of producing a spe- 
cific action upon other metallic oxides, and upon 
some metallic chlorides. In the first case, it 
forms saccharates; in the last, it liberates the 
oxygen or the chlorine from the base. With 
oxide of lead, sugar has two combinations, form- 
ing a saccharate and a bisaccharate, the one in- 
soluble, the other the reverse. The first, pro- 
duced by digesting oxide of lead in syrup, is a 
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