124 University Geological Survey of Kansas. 
CARBONATED AND SACCHARINE BEVERAGES. 
The manufacture of soda-water, pop, ginger ale, sarsaparilla 
and such beverages is so closely related to that of artificial 
mineral water that it should be discussed in this connection. 
It is important that the water used be of good quality, but 
there is reason to believe that some manufacturers are careless 
in this respect. The effect of great pressure, lack of oxygen 
and the presence of carbon dioxid in the water, on the microbes 
that might exist there, has received considerable study. Doctor 
Leone, who examined the water-supply of Munich, showed by 
a series of experiments that, in a sample of carbonated wa- 
ter, the number of microbes diminished in fifteen days from 
186 to 20. He further showed that this decrease in num- 
bers was not due to deficiency of oxygen, nor to great pressure, 
but to the presence of carbon dioxid in the water. This would 
seem to indicate, then, that in the use of ordinary carbonated 
beverages the consumer is, to some extent, protected from the 
micro-organisms which are present in impure water. 
In addition to the water and the carbon dioxid-gas, the bot- 
tler uses some or all of the following substances, each of which 
should be of good quality and standard strength : 
1. Sweetening material: Cane sugar, if used for this pur- 
pose, should be pure, and free from ‘‘bluing’’ or glucose. 
Glucose or grape sugar is often used. This has only about 
three-fourths the sweetening power of cane sugar. It is made 
by the action of sulfuric acid on starch and the subsequent neu- 
tralizing of the solution with marble dust. Competent chemists 
and physicians have pronounced it, if carefully made, a whole- 
some sweetening material,. but it renders the beverages very 
lable to fermentation. Honey may be used for sweetening, 
but, on account of its market value, it is very liable to adultera- 
tion. Saccharin (C,H,CO SO, NH), which is not a sugar at all 
but a sweet substance made in the laboratory from coal-tar, is 
a remarkable product which is coming into very extensive use. 
Cane sugar can scarcely be detected by the sense of taste in a 
solution that contains 1 part in 250 parts of water, but sac- 
charin can be detected in a solution containing but 1 part in 
