yellow deliquescent mass, wholly uncrystalliz- 
able; the last, obtained by boiling oxide of lead 
in syrup, is ultimately obtained in the form of 
thick white flocks, very light, quite tasteless, and 
insoluble, These flocks will ignite and burn like 
German tinder. A subsaccharate of lead may 
be obtained, wholly free from water, by mixing 
pounded litharge with syrup, and evaporating 
the mass to dryness by means of the sand-bath. 
One of the most useful properties of sugar, in 
household economy, is its action upon the salts 
of copper, among which the most common are 
the oxide of copper, and verdigris or acetate of 
copper. It completely dissolves and neutralizes 
these salts, totally destroying their poisonous ac- 
tion upon the animal economy. Orfila. states 
that a quantity of verdigris which in an hour 
would destroy the life of an adult human being, 
may be swallowed without danger when mixed 
with a large quantity of sugar or syrup. When 
copper vessels are used for making jellies from 
acid fruits, or for preserving fruits in sugar, the 
quantity of this latter substance necessarily used 
counteracts the dangerous properties of the cop- 
per. From this it is evident that in all cases of 
accidental poisoning from the use of copper ves- 
sels, or from having taken verdigris into the sto- 
mach, the antidote is dissolved sugar or syrup, 
in as large quantities as the stomach will bear. 
To this may be added water containing sulphur- 
etted hydrogen, which is always to be obtained 
at any respectable druggist’s. The sugar, how- 
ever, is effective by itself, and will counteract 
the poisonous qualities of any of the salts of cop- 
per. As capers, from the mode of their prepa- 
ration, always contain a small portion of verdi- 
gris, a little sugar should be added to them when 
employed to make caper-sauce. In stewpan 
cookery, likewise, if the stewpan be of copper, 
even though well tinned, a lump or two of sugar, 
which always improves the flavour of the savoury 
preparation, also secures the eater of it against 
any accidental intrusion of the poisonous salts of 
copper, which, where proper cleanliness is ob- 
served, must, if they exist at all, be very minute. 
But even should they not exist, it is much better 
to be secured against them, because the appre- 
hension is often more injurious than the reality 
of danger. 
When sugar in solution is boiled with verdi- 
gris, a considerable quantity of the cupreous 
oxide or protoxide of copper is precipitated. 
Boiled with nitrate of silver or nitrate of mer- 
cury, it precipitates the metal uncombined, as it 
does also when boiled with the chlorides of gold, 
silver, and platinum. Sugar, with water, in the 
form of syrup, has the property of dissolving the 
alkaline earths, lime, magnesia, baryta, and stron- 
tia, which are otherwise insoluble in water. All 
acids have a remarkable action upon sugar, which, 
if in contact with it for some time, though the 
acids be afterwards neutralized and separated 
from it, they render uncrystallizable. This is 
the case with citric, tartaric, and oxalic acids, 
which completely and for ever destroy in sugar 
its property of crystallization. Nitric acid con- 
verts sugar into oxalic acid, or into malic acid, 
according to the mode of its application. Sul- 
phuric, phosphoric, and the hydro-acids, have all 
a strong action upon sugar, injurious to its due 
granulation. Alkaline substances also will pre- 
vent the crystallization of sugar, and, when mixed 
in excess, will reduce the first to the third kind. 
In the manufacture of sugar, therefore, from the 
expressed juice of the cane, the beet, or any other 
sacchariferous plant, the quantity of sugar will 
be less, and that of molasses greater, whenever 
too much lime is used in the first purification of 
the juice. There is a strong electrical action in 
sugar, by which light is produced when two 
lumps of pure crystallized sugar are rubbed to- 
gether in the dark, heat being given out at the 
same time, but in so small a quantity as to be 
scarcely sensible. 
The sugar of commerce, in Great Britain, the 
produce of our colonies, is derived from the 
sugar-cane, or Saccharum officonarum, one of the 
gramineous family. Viewed from a distance, a 
plantation of sugar-canes has much the appear- 
ance of a field of wheat before the ears begin to 
make their appearance. When ripe, the smooth 
surface of the cane resembles in colour the skin 
of a ripe apple, varying in tint from the florid to 
the pale, according to the variety of the plant. 
Within the thin, crisp rind of the cane is a whit- 
ish porous pith, saturated with saccharine juice. 
This is expressed by passing the canes through 
three revolving cylinders, each cane entering first 
between the bottom and the middle cylinders, 
and being repassed between the top and the 
middle cylinders. The mill is turned either by 
cattle, by a water-wheel, or by steam power. 
The juice is used immediately, or it would fer- 
ment. From the mill it runs into a large boiler, 
in which, for purification, it is heated, but not 
boiled, with lime. The use of this alkaline earth 
has a twofold object,—to neutralize the acetic 
acid which exists ready formed in the woody 
part of the cane, and is pressed out by the mill, 
together with the saccharine juice, and to clear 
this juice from various foreign matters mingled 
with it. By the application of gradual heat, 
these impurities form a cake, with the lime, at 
the surface of the resinous liquid, which is drawn 
off clear and conveyed to the first boiler. After 
going through several successive boilers, in each 
of which it is boiled to a thicker consistence, it 
at length becomes a thick dark syrup, when it is 
put into shallow, flat coolers. In the West In- 
dies, before all the molasses has had time to 
separate from it, the coarse sugar, containing 
much dirt and impurity, is pressed into hogs- 
heads by the naked feet of the negroes; in which 
condition it reaches us in the shape of moist, 
brown, raw, or muscovado sugar. At the Mau- 
ritius, the drier estates of which island produce 
